Dark Tides
by Saj
Summary: Buffy is undergoing changes as a slayer and learning about an unknown slayer culture; Spike is in Africa in the hands of a witch and her village, learning the powers of having a soul.
1. Default Chapter

Unending thanks to Betas: Chase and Won Shu 

**Rating:  R**

**Disclaimer:  All BtVS characters belong to Joss**

**Feedback:  Appreciated  sajuno@earthlink.net**

DARK TIDES 

By Saj

Chapter 1  

Hunger 

Through the deep eyes of this,

my night

I seep into the past

on the wings of a dream that looks past me.

_Song of Remembrance_

Julia de Burgos

She was 14.  It was happening, the change.  A little more energy, a little more bounce, a tentative reaching out with her senses.  Her inner radar starting to activate, scanning and registering information in a sense code, bypassing her cognitive mind.  An inner force was winding its way though her, steadily peeling her open to know the world as only a Slayer can.  

Health science class just didn't quite nail it.  The heightened sense of awareness, the increase in strength and agility, the urgency she felt at sunset to head out in pursuit of something she couldn't name.    She was seriously suspecting that the intense alertness and readiness that came over her in the middle of the night was not a common adolescent experience.  Her new intuitive sensitivity was due to more than the surging of hormones.  

Then Merrick found her.  His explanations were the only ones that made any sense, and they were unbelievable.  Vampires.  Slayer.  Who would have thought?  What a strange and wild world she lived in--and one _could say what a strange and wild world lived in__ her.  _

________________________________

She walked slowly, a wooden stake artfully held in her right hand.  It was a misty evening.  Cool heavy moisture floated in the air, slowly soaking into her light jacket and gathering around her face and knit cap.  A watery film formed over the bulky backpack she was carrying.  Crickets were making the only noise that she was picking up.  She loved that about September. The sweet pulsing of their call that would abruptly stop as she passed by.  She had just begun her evening patrol, starting in the cemetery on the west side of town.  Things were quiet tonight.  She felt a peaceful solitude bordering on an ache.  During the summer Xander and Dawn had frequently accompanied her.  But tonight she needed to be alone.  

In the past few months she had found herself pulling out and reviewing her past, as if laying out pieces of a puzzle.  While Willow did her grieving and sorting in England, she did hers here.  Xander had stayed with Willow in London for the first month, and then returned.  Anya had disappeared.  The Magic Box remained a burnt out hull of what it had been. 

When Dawn wasn't spending time with her friends, they'd sometimes go shopping or to the beach.  She seemed to be doing okay.  

There were times when they could both feel Tara's presence as if she were strolling through the house.  One afternoon she had found Dawn sitting where Tara had fallen.  She was so still that Buffy had felt a chill of uneasiness run through her.  Dawn had opened her eyes as if coming out of a dream and looked over at her.  "I can feel her.  If I'm really still and quiet, I can feel Tara."  Buffy had sat next to her and put an arm around her, sitting so still she could feel their heartbeats.  They had sat quietly together for a long time, breathing in Tara's generous and strong energy.

Xander didn't smile easily these days.  When he wasn't at his construction job, he had taken to hanging out and working on her house.  It was as if he thought that he could rebuild their lives, one nail at a time. The Council had finally agreed to give Buffy a monthly stipend, as well as a lump sum as back pay.  Apparently, the recent apocalyptical threat had loosened their pocketbooks.  She had used some of the money for building materials so Xander could remodel the basement into a new training room.  He had approached the project with such an intensity that the air around him seemed to quietly burn.

Shattered and healing beings, all of them.  

At least she wanted to be here now.  The numb rage at being sucked back into her life had dissolved, leaving her feeling more like herself than she had since before Glory hit town.  Yet, she wasn't the same.  None of them would ever be the same.  

Dawn joined her and Xander on patrol several times a week.  She took to it with a skill and delight that was both a pleasure and a fear to watch.  They would head home after a few hours and Buffy would then switch into serious slayer mode.  It would be during these times, when she was centered in her slayer energy in the middle of the night, alone, that she found herself taking apart her life and putting it back together again, over and over, until the pieces started to fit. 

She was changing.  Her fighting was quicker, stronger and more precise.  Her dreams were more frequent and clear.  A new level was opening within her, reminding her of when the slayer energy first hit at 14.  

Merrick had managed to convince her that she had a unique, if not extremely weird, calling.  She began to understand a little about the primal powers that had been taking form within her.  If it hadn't been for the dreams, she would have enjoyed it.  A quiet zingy feeling flowed through her.  She had felt it in her blood, a humming current like a deep river.  Merrick had said it was her slayer chi--the flow of her life essence.  Whatever.  It was good. 

But the dreams.  Even now, years later, they remained alive, lying just below the surface, like a dark force watching for openings.  

Colors, smells, voices, journeys through times and cultures, painted in blood and death.  Sometimes, all of history seemed to be showing itself to her in her dreams, as if she were living and dying repeatedly, forever.  Endless battles, hand to hand with faceless vampires.  Then, her inevitable death, over and over.  Only to come back again.  Another body, another time, another vampire.

Did she have a premonition, even then, that death was hers only to give, not to have?  She didn't think so, not really.  She didn't analyze her dreams then; they just happened, leaving behind fragmented feelings and images. It had been Giles who had paid close attention to her dreams, guiding her in their meanings, showing her that she was connected to something very large and insistent.  It was only then that she understood symbolic messages were bleeding into her consciousness while she slept.

As she thought back, she could see that pieces were showing themselves then that she was only now starting to put together.  Like the death puzzle.  She felt a dark tremor pass through her as she recalled the horror she felt when she found herself alive again, walking through the streets of Sunnydale in a wild daze, wondering if she had somehow been thrown into hell.  She had felt a sickness of spirit, a sense of raging defeat in the days and months that followed.  Would she always be brought back?  If not by Willow or Xander, by some other unforeseen force unwilling to let her go?  She came to believe that she would never be allowed to know death.  Not the finality and peace of it.  Whatever claimed her, whatever this was that made her the Slayer, it did not seem to end, ever.

Now, when she became frightened, not of death, but of _not dying, she would remember her experience of what had seemed like heaven.  That had been real.  In that realm she had been whole, complete, and filled with a sense of peace.  She now believed that when she died a part of her would be released to return there.  _

Yet, the part of her that carried the slayer lineage would never die.  That primal energy would move forward into another form, always taking shape and existence.  Part of her was this simple being made up of personal history and temperament, and the other part, the more powerful and determining aspect, was made from something as old and enduring as time. 

As she had calmly and clearly laid out these pieces, that was what she had come to.  And it had settled in as only something that is true does. 

A thought popped into her head, surprising her.  With a few slight differences, she was kind of like a vampire.  She was called to fight chaos and evil, and they were driven to create it, but aside from that, they had some things in common.  To be a Slayer or a vampire was to be sucked into a force as compelling as the tides.  This was a new thought for her and it was startling.  She squirmed a little as a new-felt tinge of compassion wormed its way through her.  One day they're going on with their little human life, and the next they're in game face, talking with a lisp, looking for a neck to chomp on.  Must have been a shock.  She could understand that.  

Did they ever experience the kind of fatigue she felt, the bone-deep tiredness of existing outside, apart?  Probably not, she decided.  At least not in her neighborhood--they didn't live that long. 

She wondered what her life would look like if she thought she would live to, say, 60--hell, even 40.  As it was, she didn't know of any slayers who had made it past 25.  She was shooting for 30, herself.  God, what would it be like to not have to live with _the_ question--is this the night?  No matter how good she was, or how prepared, the time would come when a vamp or some other Big Bad would luck out.  It's just statistics and the nature of the job.  Family, friends, Watcher, or not.  It's the inevitable that hangs in thin air, waiting for its moment. 

 

Buffy sat down on a tombstone that had fallen on its side, making it a convenient place to stop for a minute.  The soft smooth crush of her expensive leather pants against her skin, comforted her.  She put her hands to her temples and closed her eyes.  Oh, headache.  This was more probing-like philosophical thinking than she was used to.

Hello.  Her slayer sense was whistling and whizzing.  Turning quickly to her right she spotted a young female vampire emerging from the earth about five feet away.  This was too easy, she thought, and realized she would welcome a little tussle about now to shake off the gloom.  Oh, well, it can't always be an adrenaline rush, she thought with a slump of disappointment.  As the female form brushed off the last of the dirt from her black lace blouse, she looked around. Buffy stood in front of her.  "Hi.  Sorry about this, but really, it's for the best.  You'd be miserable here, trust me."  As the vamp looked at her with a confused and dazed expression, Buffy brought the stake home with a movement so fast it could hardly be seen.  Dust fluttered into the moist night air and fell to the ground like tiny wet moths.

Thank God it wasn't always so boring, or her death wish would get the best of her.  But, she had to admit, slaying beat working at the Doublemeat Palace.  She imagined her job satisfaction probably rated higher than most.  Of course, it wasn't a normal job and it was a bit hard when people asked her what kind of work she did.  Graveyard maintenance.  Night shift.  People looked at her with undisguised pity and only slightly masked horror.  But, hey, no more chicken hat.  Although there were nights she was tempted to pull it out and wear it on patrol, just for shock value.     

She adjusted her backpack and took stock of where she was.  She had made her way into the central part of town where the oldest cemetery was.  Peaceful Acres.  There were mausoleums here as large as her house.  Many of the gravestones were hand carved and had been imported from Italy.  She liked passing through here.  The trees were old and stood around her like silent queens of the underworld, keeping her company as she walked through their realm.  She stood still a moment, letting the environment register through her senses.  Quiet.  Old, artsy and quiet.  She continued walking, and began thinking about how hard she had tried to believe she could be normal.

When she was new at the slayer thing, she had thought she could manipulate it.  Be normal by day; control the vampire population at night.  No biggie.  A little shopping, a little time with friends at the Bronze, a little slaughtering of vamps before bed—just a _little different than other girls' lives.   _

Now she knew, had finally completely accepted, that she would never be normal.  There was something about trying to kill all her friends and Dawn in an effort to enter the world of everydayness that woke her up.  Nope, no "normal" for her.  She had stopped being normal the very moment the primal biological wheel of slayer karma began to unwind itself in her sentient adolescent cells.

Angel should have been her first clue.  She had felt a draw towards him that was as compelling as the force that pulled her to slay vampires.  From that first moment of contact, she had felt it.    

_Their bodies screamed from the intensity of the burning energy caught between them--warm slayer flesh and cool vampire skin pressing, reaching hungrily for the other.  She was shaking, not from the wet cold, but from being about to step off a precipice.  An abyss of hunger and need was consuming her, opening her spirit and body to his.  A wildfire of need burst forth, as if it had been smoldering for centuries, waiting for this moment to ignite.  Unsure, caught off guard, she pulled back slightly.  Angel's mouth pushed harder against hers--his tongue exploring with an urgency, a growl rumbling up from his chest.  Pulling her closer to him, his fingers expertly exploring and stroking her, he whispered and groaned of his love, like a tortured animal.  His body trembled from the effort of moving slowly, being gentle.  He morphed into game face and began entering her.  His fangs caressed her flesh, just breaking the skin-- his tongue followed the curve of neck to the soft hollow of her throat.  As Buffy traced the thickened ridges and edges of his demonic face with her fingertips, she felt herself dissolving into something fierce and predatory.  Holding back, holding back, keeping control.  Not here.  This isn't about that.  Angel pushed deeper, breaking through the tender virginal membrane, causing slight waves of exquisite pain to ripple up into her belly and rise into a hungry moan escaping from her throat.  The tender depth of their feelings for each other were cast aside into an ocean of hunger and craving that demanded a violence of possession—that howled for satiation.  Looking at her with an expression of soft shock, he groaned, "God, Buffy..." and then his effort at gentle initiation gave way, and he took her violently, loudly, and with such force it would have crushed and broken her if she hadn't been the slayer.  She wrapped her strong legs around him, holding him to her, moving with him, against him, pulling, biting, scratching, riding him until she came with a need that drove her to sink her teeth deeply into his shoulder, his blood flowing into her mouth as a predatory growl came up from her depths.  _

She remembered catching a look in Angel's eyes, as he lay staring at her, at them, afterward.  She had eased closer to him, his strength, solidness.  Keeping her fears at bay, she had asked, "Is this how it usually is?"  He had looked at her, the way he did when there was something that needed to be said directly.  "There's an energy between us I've never felt before.  With vampires, well, sex can be, often is, rough, even dangerous.  But, you, and I—there's something between us that is wilder than I've ever known."   He had rolled over and pulled her on top of him, stroking her back.  It was then that she had noticed the bloodstains on the sheets.  His blood, not hers.  Kissing her slowly, he had said, "Making love with you is like swimming in fire."  Shaken by the primal passion that lay between them, they had held on to each other as they fell asleep, unsure of what their union had the potential to unleash.  

Angelus.  She cringed as she remembered his cruelty.  _You were great.  Really.  I thought you were a pro.  Words meant to cut into her spirit and powers.  __Bells ringing, fireworks, a dulcent choir of pretty little birdies?  Come on Buffy.  It's not like I've never been there before.  She realized now that he had been terrified because he knew she would destroy him.  _

Her lovemaking with Angel held a ragged hunger and heartbreak that she had tightly wrapped up and stored away in the attic of her longings.  The more she had been with him, the more insistent her primal energies had become.  She had assumed that was a normal part of falling in love. 

It had been her experience with Riley that had brought home the difference.  Sleeping with Riley had a sweetness and safety to it that she took refuge in.  Her body had felt rocked and aroused in a gentle quiet way, content to never fully awaken.  She hadn't worried about finding herself on the edge of a precipice, losing control, falling into a primality that could devour her.  Being with Riley never came close to igniting the passion and power of that first and only time with Angel.  Not because she didn't love him, not because he wasn't a skilled and passionate lover, and not because she didn't desire him. 

God, what it had taken for her to be willing to finally see the truth about herself?

Spike.

_He tasted like sex.  Tracing across his pectoral muscle with her tongue, she took a nipple between her teeth, pulling and biting, while her hands traveled and clawed their way down his back.  _

She took a deep breath, remembering.  The vibration of his being, the animal strength and vampire agility, tempered by time and experience.  She had yearned for him on a cellular level, from the core of her being. She had wanted to devour him, take him into her as fully and completely as she had ever wanted to kill him. 

_Throwing her on to her back, he balanced himself just inches above her.  As their eyes met, an electric aliveness traveled between them, signaling they were each ready and alert for the next move.  Laughing, a full delicious laugh, she shoved him hard.  He flew across the crypt, hitting the wall, his paper-thin skin grazing against lit candles.  Spike's eyes grew wide.  Sending her a slow grin, he said, "You bitch."  Snaking towards her, he added, "Shouldn't play with fire, pet."  Then moving lightning fast, knocking over a table and lamp in the process, he grabbed her ankle as she tried to stand and leap away.  Before she could kick him with her free leg, he was on top of her, pinning her, spreading her legs apart.  Breathing hard, needing him inside of her, she struggled with all her strength to push him away.  "No use fighting me Slayer."  His face, vibrating with desire and power, came closer, his fiery blue eyes drilling into hers. "Say it."  Fighting against him, while hoping he would not loosen his grip, she accepted with relief that she was overpowered.  "Say it," he whispered fiercely.  Her legs spread, his cock pressing against her, ready.  "Never."  Her voice quivered unconvincingly.  His mouth fell roughly over hers, kissing and biting until her lips hurt.  His tongue moved forcefully inside her mouth.  The tip of his cock pressed against her, ready to push inside, and she moaned, "Okay, okay."  He pressed into her just slightly and withdrew.  "Say it, Slayer."  Rolling her head away and arching her hips toward him, she whispered, "Uncle, you bastard.  Now fuck me."  Laughing, he pushed into her fully, keeping her pinned while they moved against and into each other, until she came, screaming and biting into his flesh.     _

After several more rounds, he had said, "The things you do..the way you make it hurt in all the wrong places.  I've never been with such an animal."  Angel had implied as much, but with way more tact.  She had finally let go, her primal sexual desires showing themselves with Spike.  He had met her move for move, hunger for hunger.  The intensity between them would take them to an edge at times where she wasn't sure if they were going to fuck or kill each other.  And, in those moments, it was hard to say which she wanted most.

She wasn't sure just when the truth finally took hold, staring her down until she couldn't lie to herself any longer.  Spike had said it, and she had wanted to kill him for it.  _I'm just saying…vampires make you hot.  He knew that the electrical heat between them, a vampire and a slayer, fucking, threw the world out of kilter a notch.  And he had reveled in it.  He had tried to possess her through his lovemaking with the same fierce need and hunger he brought to battle.  He had been willing to be consumed in an effort to claim her._

Sex with Spike had been amazing--_a bloody revelation, touching into the very core of their primal energies.  _

A slayer is biologically attuned to vampiric energy. And she was now suspecting that she needed their energy almost as basically and essentially as they needed blood.  That was where her life force flamed and burned. 

Faith had been the first to say it, and had seemed disbelieving that Buffy didn't appreciate the basicness of it.  _Hey, slaying's what we were built for.  If you're not enjoying it, you're doing something wrong.  Buffy remembered the feeling of her face becoming hot, ashamed at being so exposed.  She had tried to convince herself that her nightly dances with vamps were acts of civic duty--a dirty job, but someone had to do it.  And, lucky her.  She had been called.   She had been unable to handle, to know where to put, the pleasure and aliveness that came over her as she battled and slay demons.  Faith had pushed her, __You're a liar. I've seen you.  Tell me staking a vamp doesn't get you a little bit juiced.  Come on, say it.  You can't fool me.  The look in your eyes right after a kill?  You just get hungry for more._

Hunger.  Taking out vampires was a craving, a need, a pleasure….a turn-on.  And sex-- well, to paraphrase Spike, _The only thing better than killing a vampire was fucking one.  _

Just then, a blurring of movement rushed toward her, jerking her out of her thoughts.  Her body senses were singing, readying for the fight faster than her mind could track it.  The fact was, this was almost all body, maybe 2% mind.  She ducked as he swung his fist at her face.  She swerved in the opposite direction, and watched for an opening, stake in hand.  He was large, well built.  Could have been a football player from high school.  As he lunged at her, she easily stepped aside, and asked, "Hey, have we met?"  She had seen that look of surprise before.  Unless they knew she was the Slayer, coming across her was always a shock.  She could have staked him quickly in that instant, but fact was, she needed a little more action.  She kicked him hard in the chest, sending him flying, then walked towards him as he stood up.  "Let's see, maybe the senior prom?  Hmm.  Oh, I remember.  You were with the cheerleader with the nose piercing.  A gross but powerful fashion statement."  A fearful anger crossed his face as he replied, "Slayer.  You're smaller than I thought.  Hardly a snack."  He faked a swing, and as she ducked, he caught her with a solid punch across her jaw.  She smiled at the contact.  She needed that.  But, hey, enough was enough.  She had a patrol to finish.  "I'm definitely more than a snack.  And you're…" she said as she pulled into his punch and bounced back to stake him precisely through his heart, "dust."

Life was so much better since she gave herself permission to enjoy her job.  She almost hummed to herself.

Buffy pulled off her backpack and zipped open a pocket, pulling out a soda.  Diet of course.  She sat down under a tree, perching herself on one of its large extending roots.  The night felt strange.  Quiet.  Something's off.  What is it?  She looked up into the stars, and for a moment she could hear the ocean, which was odd since she was miles from the surf.  Hmm.  Taking a sip of soda, she stretched and flexed her muscles, and found herself thinking of Spike.

Where was he?  His crypt sat empty since Clem had moved out a couple of weeks ago.  He said he wasn't sure if Spike was coming back.  There were things about Spike she wasn't sure of, but that wasn't one of them.  He always came back.  

It was that vampire thing, the best she could figure out.  Why she had kissed him that night at the Bronz.  She had felt shaken and numb with anger after Willow's crazy spell.  One moment she had been cleverly dropping puns and fighting vampires with a relish, and the next she was thrown back into her hell world, lying on the ground looking up at Spike as he had offered her his hand.  And it had enraged her.  He had enraged her.  Her desire to pull him to her and lose herself in him had enraged her.  

She had decided to go home, take a hot bath, and try to sleep.  But her body had other ideas.  She had felt his presence, the way she always did.  A singsong buzz had radiated in her chest telling her he was nearby.  Her good intentions headed for the door, and her slayer body had headed for Spike like a heat-seeking missile.  The next thing she knew she had walked up to him and jerked his head down to hers, kissing him with the hunger of someone starving to death.  His mouth had responded with an equal intensity and need.  The deadness of her body had dissolved like chunks of ice breaking off an iceberg as a spring of volcanic heat rose up from within her.  She had felt the warming of her center vibrate up through her lips, sucking his vampiric energy into her, igniting frozen cells into pools of living flesh.  His roving hands had sent waves of life into her wherever they touched.  The sexual hunger radiating between them had created a whirlpool of aliveness that had carried her back into the realm of the living.     

She had gone home that night feeling alive for the first time since having returned.  She had also felt like dirt.  How could she let him touch her?  How did something as evil as he have the power to cause such hot life to stir in her?  What was _she that he could do that to her?  _

And, she had kept going to him.  Her hungers pulling at her with a force that had proved impossible to resist.  _Do you even like me?  All she had allowed herself to know was that she could not stay away from him.  _But you like what I do to you._ __ And he had accepted that, and did what he did to her with a passion and artistry that was breathtaking.  The fierceness, freedom and hunger in their lovemaking had literally brought her back to life.  She wondered if he knew he had saved her.  _

She stopped her slow contemplative walking, twirling her stake in her hand.  She had left the central part of town and was now at the last peripheral cemetery, the one where Spike's crypt was, further ahead.  She looked around.  The grounds were untended and overgrown.  The gravestones were crumbling and crawling with weeds.  Antique rose bushes had taken over in places, creating strange rambling forms.  Lavender, wisteria and honeysuckle grew wild and twisted and twirled up and around endless cracks and crevices.  In the summer the scent was so rich as to be overwhelming.  There was a quiet passion rooted here that took bloom each season despite complete lack of care.

She walked over to a concrete bench with a crack running through it.  She had been here many times--this particular spot.  And here, on this purposeful walk of readiness in other young female forms.  Recently different slayers had appeared in her dreams and seemed to be trying to talk to her in a language that she couldn't quite decipher.  Her body had a sense of the meanings, but the translation hadn't made it to her brain as yet.  

The one truth that seemed obvious, was that there was a living connection between her and previous slayers.  A mysterious knowledge was being passed to her vividly and passionately while she slept.  

Surprising her, and not, Spike was almost always in these dreams.

The first dream was of Kendra--disciplined, tender, innocent Kendra.  A virgin slayer trained by old men.  She wasn't a virgin in the dream.  

_Her body lay spread across the library floor, only not lifeless and wet with blood as Buffy last remembered her.  This time, she was nude, her warrior's body glistening.  Spike lay atop of her, his sinewy form luminously white against her dark skin, entering her with a slow rhythm, stroking her hair as she moaned._

_"That's it, love," he said softly, as to a child, "I've got you."  He leaned forward, kissing her tenderly on her forehead, eyes, her half open mouth. "It'll be quick," he whispered as he stroked her left breast, letting his hand rest gently over her heart.  Buffy could feel his desire and love, as palpable as the air she was breathing.  Kendra looked over at her, their eyes meeting across time.  The space between them opened into a still silence, leaving the movements of sexual heat far behind, as in a dim cool corridor.  Buffy was not separate from Kendra, and yet she was. She felt her hand move, reaching to the right of her bare hip for Kendra's favored stake.  She slowly wrapped her hand around it, ready.  She could feel the hardness of Spike inside her, moving confidently, surely, with a gentleness that made her shiver in cold horror.  Then she felt herself plummet into a fire of passion that was as hot as death, and as far away, or as close._

_She gasped, and looking up was caught in the icy blue clarity of his eyes.  She clutched the precise and sharp wooden weapon in her hand as she came, pulsing with waves of ecstatic release.  At that moment, Spike pushed deeper inside her, while burying his razor sharp fangs into her jugular vein with a soft low growl.  Her ready grip loosened, the stake softly rolling from her fingers to the floor, coming to a final stillness as her blood drained from her body in a sensual flow whispering of freedom.  The darkly velvet peace that came over her, was a balm sweeter than the heaven she had been pulled from.  His voice gently fell around her like a soft blanket, "Rest, love."  _

_She had awakened from the dream with her face wet from tears, her soul drenched with a vision of unalterable future.  _

________________________________

Buffy looked up.  The door to Spike's crypt was directly in front of her, not a foot from her nose.  Vines of climbing wisteria had wrapped themselves around the entryway as if announcing the inevitable entanglements that lie within.  The still emptiness of the chamber seemed to send chilling whispers into the air.  

There was a quietness she could have sliced with her stake.  Even the crickets' throbbing calls had dropped away.  She felt her chest soften as a sigh escaped, easing the bittersweet tension that had gathered around her throat.

Why did this mixture of tension, sadness and anger come up when she came here?  Buffy leaned against the stone archway.  She remembered a talk she had with Giles as they walked along the beach just before he had left for England 

"Giles, I need to talk with you about something.  And it's hard for me.  It's, you know, about Spike."  

He seemed a little absentminded.  "Hmmm.  About Spike?  Did you know there are at least three theses based on him?  He's quite captured the imagination of the Council's graduate students.  But I'm sure that's not what you have on your mind.  Ah, go on."  

Hmm.  Not quite with the program here.  Okay.  "Well, it's actually about more than Spike.  I've been thinking a lot about, well, sex.  About being a slayer and sex.  And vampires."  She stopped and looked out towards the ocean, hoping for guidance. 

"Ah, well, you know you can talk to me about anything.  I may make small cringing movements as if to run, but please, continue." He smiled. "Really, go on.  We've all been there.  Well, maybe not with vampires…but, one can imagine."

Buffy looked down at her feet, not feeling like this was getting easier.  "Giles, I'm beginning to feel I might have better luck giving Ann Landers a call.  Are you with me here?"

"Yes, sorry.  The last few days have been, well, I'm just not quite myself yet. You _do_ know Ann Landers died recently?  But really, you can talk to me about anything.  Okay, the subject at hand.  Sex with vampires.  Not just Spike then.  I take it we're including your experience with Angel in this discussion.  Or, have there been more than…?

"God, Giles.  No.  Angel and Spike.  Vampires.  Me, the slayer, and sex with vampires.  Just two of them."    

"Yes, of course.  Ah, I would imagine that sleeping with vampires is an experience of its own, different than…well, say with mere mortals, so to speak."

Whew, at last.  That teleporting spell must have wiped out a sizeable chunk of his brain cells.  "Giles, with Angel and Spike, it was way different than with Riley.  Like off the map.  I can't help but wonder if it's, you know…something about vampires, and me--a slayer."

Giles had picked up speed, and was walking so fast that Buffy had moved into a light jog in order to keep up.  "Well, yes, if what I have been researching lately is correct, it would seem that sexual relations between slayers and vampires involve some unique, ah, dynamics and energies." He abruptly come to a stop and turned to face her.  "Can you say a little more about what you mean by off the map?" He was making every effort to appear at ease.  At least he hadn't taken off his glasses yet.  She read that as a good sign.

Okay.  "With Angel I felt an intense primal energy come over me, like a predator thing.  It was extremely powerful.  That was there with Spike too, but so were other things.  It was more complicated with Spike. Except, simpler, you know, since he didn't turn into his evil, or, _eviler_, twin.  Anyway, with Spike, it was as if we were connected on some deep, almost animal level.  And I felt like I could take in his energy, like I could breath, eat, drink it in and it made me stronger, more alive.  There was something about being with him that seemed so basic and compelling that it made me think it might have something to do with our biology, you know, as vampire and slayer."  She looked down, and then said.  "Now would be a good time to burst out laughing."

He smiled and laughed lightly.  "I'm sure that would help some.  I know this is a difficult subject."  He looked at her calmly, though his forehead burrowed into lines of concern.  "I've come across some resources the Council is unaware of.  I had thought it best to wait until you were adjusted to being back and feeling stronger before bringing up some of what I've been researching."  He motioned to a bench nearby and they walked over and sat down.

"It would seem that you are not the first slayer to find herself sexually involved with a vampire.  There are actually a number of accounts I have come across.  I found it startling at first, and then it began to make sense.  Apparently there is a powerful energy exchange that occurs, such as what you have described.  For slayers, as far as I can tell, a temporary biological enhancement takes place through the intake of vampire energy through sex.  And vampires experience a certain amount of that as well, though not as profoundly.  For vampires it is the blood of slayers that provides a biological boost, sometimes amazingly so."  He looked at her tentatively.

Oh, was he asking if Spike had drunk from her?  Surely, not.  And Spike hadn't.  At least, not from her neck.  Hmm.  "Ah,…what kind of amazing boost?"

Giles raised an eyebrow, and began combing his fingers through his hair.  "Again, Buffy, this is new research, and there's yet much to put together.  Most of this new information is based on slayers' journals that we discovered archived at the Council library.  Additionally, we have recently come into contact with a witch who claims to have direct knowledge of a slayer culture existing totally separate from the Council.  But to answer your question, …"  

  
Huh?  "Wait a minute.  Back up.  There are slayer journals?  Journals of slayers who slept with vampires?  There's a slayer culture out there without me in it?  Giles, this is a hell of a lot of new information.  How long have you known these things?"

"Buffy, like I said, this is new research.  After returning to England, I was introduced to a relative of Olivia's who, by coincidence, had worked in the Council library for several years.  As we came to know each other we discovered we had similar views and agendas regarding the Council.  Recently she started sharing some of her private research with me.  Turns out she has put onto microfilm hundreds of slayers' journals that had been forgotten in the Council's archives."

A hard, angry feeling passed through her.  "Giles, it was you who returned my journals to me when I came back.  I thought you had taken them for safekeeping."  

He took a deep breath, and studied his hands for a minute.  "A slayer's journals, along with her Watcher's, are obtained as soon as possible after a slayer dies.  In actual practice, it is the Watchers' journals that are studied.  The slayers' journals are placed in archives and are more or less forgotten.  They're dismissed as insignificant, which has actually been a stroke of luck.  The most powerful and amazing information has come to light with these records."  He paused, and then looked at her.  "Buffy, your journals are important.  Future slayers' lives may depend on having access to what you have experienced and learned.  Because of that, I did _not _give them to the Council.  I reported that you didn't keep diaries, and surrendered only mine."  He paused, and then continued, "I instead allowed your journals to be put on microfilm for use in our continuing research outside of the Council.  When I learned of your return, I had the microfilm and all research related to your journals destroyed."

Buffy felt more than a little dazed.  She remembered when she had tried to find out more about how previous slayers had been killed, and the Watcher's diaries were all she had.  Yeah, a dead slayer may not write much, but the days and months before her death could yield a wealth of information.  And, sure, she'd want her diaries available to future slayers.  After a certain amount of editing—like a lot.  But no way were they going to the Council.  This was just too much.  

"Let's walk some more Giles.  Only this time, don't leave me in the dust."  They started walking again, at a steady pace, heads down. "I don't know what to think.  Slayer journals. Wow.  How handy.  If only I'd known."

"I'm sorry.  I should have informed you of what I was uncovering.  I just didn't think it was immediately relevant, or that you were ready to use this new information.  If I had known…."

She'd have to sort out the slayer culture thing later.  "Okay, let's get back to this temporary biological enhancement stuff.  So, what I said, what I felt was happening, it was true.  You know, with Spike."  

"Buffy, it makes perfect sense that in your state you would have turned to Spike.  You were almost completely depleted of your slayer energy when you were resurrected.  And the emotional trauma must have added considerably to the difficulty of your recovery."  He was silent a moment, considering something.  Then he said, "The slayer part of you knew what you needed, and, perhaps, you were lucky that Spike was, ah, available."  

"Yeah, pretty available.  Lucky.  That's me."  Buffy recalled the feeling of aliveness that had come over her the night she had kissed Spike at the Bronz.  "Giles, it was like all circuits were blown open and Spike's energy just poured into me.  And I had to have it."  

Giles stopped walking and looked at her out of the corner of his eye.  "You know, it's just possible you could have come across a worse cure."

Buffy felt confused and then realized he was playing with her, and she began to laugh, and then they laughed together.  "Yeah, if you need unthawing, Spike's the one to call.  He got those slayer cells rock and rolling in record time."  

The space between them opened and relaxed.  Giles reached out and touched her hair.  "Buffy, I don't mean to make light of this.  I know it must have felt frightening to be so drawn to him, from such a primal level, and to not know why, or be able to stop it.  You must have felt extremely confused."

She felt tears forming.  "It was awful.  I felt like I didn't come back right.  I couldn't understand how I could go to Spike that way.  He's evil and I would have killed him long ago if he didn't have that chip.  And there I was sleeping with him.  I thought I must have come back twisted in some dark way."  She felt her voice break and looked down.  "I couldn't stop going to him, Giles.  It took a long time before I felt strong enough to end it."

Giles looked surprised.  "Buffy, Spike is what he is.  But he has his redeeming qualities.  One of which is an unshakable love for you and Dawn.  You didn't grab a fledgling vampire for a one-night stand while patrolling, or ring up Dracula.  Yes, you experienced a primal drive towards regeneration through sex, but I don't believe for a minute that that was all that drove you to Spike."

Buffy stared at Giles dumbfounded, at a loss for words, as she experienced an emotional, mental, and spiritual traffic jam.  

She couldn't move.  She stood still and stared teary eyed into the blueness of the sea.  A huge aching sadness surfaced that she couldn't place. 

She felt tired, not sure if she wanted to know much more.  Surely, there couldn't be much more. "Anything more?  You know, about slayers and vampires, and so forth."

Taking a breath, he continued with some hesitation. "In short, it would seem that slayers are extremely sensitive to the energy of vampires.  Part of the biological change that occurs in a slayer at adolescence involves not only the evolution of a specialized hypersensitivity, but of a constitution that is actually reenergized when interacting with vampires.  Such as in slaying.  Or, as in, ah, sex. It could be that slayers and vampires have an ancient biological connection. There is even a theory that the First Slayer's powers were actually formed out of vampires' energies."

To hear Giles say it so clinically and matter of fact caused her to freeze inside with a sense of foreboding.  On one hand, he made it sound like it was perfectly reasonable for slayers to sleep with vampires occasionally, just to, like, recharge their batteries, and on the other hand, there was something dark and crawly in there, that she could sense he was reluctant to talk about.  

"Uhh, Giles.  Is there more?"

"Buffy, maybe this isn't the best time."

She noticed that her breathing was shallow and a little rapid.  She was afraid of what he might tell her, but how could she not ask?  "Giles, I have to know what I am, what I'm dealing with.  So, again I ask, what _more_?"  

He resisted briefly, then, despite himself, his eyes lit up as he began talking about his research.  "Well, it's really quite fascinating actually.  There is evidence that on occasion the first slayers participated in rituals that enabled them to harness a vampire's energy, ah, sexually.  It seems this was accomplished sometimes through consensual agreements, and sometimes through force.  In which case, the vampire was usually killed afterwards."  Giles glanced at Buffy and noted her stunned look. He quickly tried bringing the discussion to a graceful end. "But those were ancient practices, and may never have existed at all.  Much, if not all these stories are no doubt simple mythology."  If only he had stopped there.  "Of course, there is always a dangerous element involved when a slayer is sexually involved with a vampire.  Dangerous for both.  That is often, no doubt, part of the attraction.  Precautions almost always should be taken. But, of course, Spike has the infamous brain implant, so he couldn't really hurt you, nor do I believe he would want to.  And, clearly, you refrained from staking him in the heat of passion."  He let out a forced little laugh.  "As I say, theories and research regarding violence within slayer-vampire sexual behaviors really isn't relevant to your experience."  He let out a sigh of relief.  

Buffy couldn't think.  She plopped down on the sand, frowning as she tried to grasp what he was telling her, and exactly what was upsetting her so much.  Suddenly, a fragment of a dream swept through her mind.

She rocked against Spike, hard inside her, his slender hips moving under her, while waves of passion pulsed between them.  Spike's lean muscled arms were stretched above his head; his wrists limp within heavy handcuffs.  Suddenly the shared space of red passion cracked apart.  Desperate, primal need took over. Their eyes locked.  A sad question passed through his pupils as she brought the wooden stake to a point above his chest, right over his heart, while grinding her cunt slowly against him. 

It was a blur. She vaguely recalled the sound of Giles' voice as he mentioned Spike's chip.  As if coming out of a deep sleep, she had said, "Spike's chip stopped working on me. He could hurt me."  

A ripple passed through the air.  Removing his glasses, he slowly rubbed his eyes, and then looked down at her with a steadiness that sent a ping of fear through her.  "_Did _he hurt you?"

She looked away, not wanting to go into what had happened.  "We hurt each other."

Ripper stood before her.  Buffy pulled away instinctually.  "_Did_ Spike hurt you?"

It was clear that she wasn't going to be able to get around this, and she didn't have the energy to try.  "Once.  After I broke off with him.  He and Anya slept together, and I felt hurt.  He came to see me, to apologize.  I told him that I could never love him.  He lost it. He tried to rape me."  Buffy stopped talking, and felt her shoulders shaking as she began to cry.  "I was able to push him off, to stop him.  He looked shocked, as if he hadn't realized what he was doing."  She couldn't stop crying.  Her feelings didn't make any sense.  She felt the fear and rage of that night, and… Spike was gone.  He had left her.  And he had loved her and gently washed and bandaged her injured hands, and listened when she needed to say what she couldn't tell anyone else, and threw her down and tried to rape her, and she pounded his face into a pulp telling him he was a thing, and he let her, and it was all a jumbled up mess of grief, and she would never be able to stop crying.

She felt Giles sit down next to her and pull her into his arms, and she cried until there were no tears left.    

It had become quiet as Giles said,  "Where is Spike now?"

Buffy sighed, pulling herself away from the coldness of the stones that lined the entryway to the crypt.  She steeled herself and faced the worn wooden door.  There was a huge bolt and padlock on the antique door handle.  Clem had put it there.  He had confessed to her one night that he didn't exactly have a feeling of safety living in Spike's place, given his reputation in the demon community.  Buffy had taken to doing extra rounds near the crypt, making sure the word got out that the Slayer was hanging out in this part of town.  She had told herself that she did this for Clem, but she knew it was more than that.  It was a ritual of safekeeping that extended far beyond him.  And besides, trashing this place was her right, exclusively.

Digging into a pocket, she pulled out the key Clem had left with her.  Undoing the lock, she gently pushed on the door, half expecting it to open slowly with a high creak like in the horror films.  Instead, it didn't budge.  She now remembered why she had always thrown the door open like a storm trooper—that's how you opened the fucking door.  It was at least six inches thick and didn't exactly roll easily on its hinges.  She positioned herself and kicked it open, the impact sending shock waves through the air.  

She looked into the abandoned chamber, dark except for the castings of moonlight coming through the windows.  She had no memories of the place before Spike, as if it hadn't existed.  Now, every inch of it flashed a memory at her.  She felt his presence as vividly as if he stood directly in front of her.  

She felt a cold ache of sadness and frozen rage pass through her.  

Damn Spike.  

Where the hell was he?


	2. Clarity

Unending thanks to Betas: Chase and Won Shu 

**Rating:  R**

**Disclaimer:  All BtVS characters belong to Joss**

**Feedback:  Appreciated  sajuno@earthlink.net**

                                                         DARK TIDES 

By Saj

Chapter 2

Clarity 

_Not alive, not dead:_

Awake, I am awake 

_In the desert of an eye._

_Insomiac_

Octavio Paz

_Bloody hell.  Bloody, fucking hell._

Ducking and swerving to his left, he kept his eyes focused on the advancing demon.  Not for the first time, Spike was thankful for the gift of vampiric speed.  Rolling to the ground, he felt the scattering of bits and pieces of bones under his moving body.  A regular fucking grave this was.  Jumping to his feet, he watched for his opening.  Unfortunately, his opponent had been waiting with as astute attention as he and was the first to strike.  A searing fist plowed into Spike, igniting a path of flesh-eating flames that burned their way across his chest.

An angry and determined howl curled up around his spine and shot out of him. He grabbed a fiery wrist within an iron grip, burning his fingers to the bone as he maintained his hold.  He slammed his other fist into the beast's face and jumped him as he went down.  Spike grabbed his head and twisted it with the force of the warrior and monster he knew himself to be, and basked in the glory of victory as the neck bones snapped in a lively little chorus of crunches.  

"I get what I came for…I passed right?"

Well, yes and no.  He'd known better.  It was just that he'd been so damned desperate, it'd blinded him.  He knew that these shamanic-types were tricky.  He had just sorta forgot, in his pain driven haste and all.  

Now what was it he had wanted from this jaunt to the bloody ends of the earth?  Slayer! There had been a time, before the Slayer….he almost strangled on the bitter bile that gathered around his throat.  The bitch had found her way into his dreams, his thoughts, his blood. The pissy little bint had whittled him down to a shadow of himself.  He'd become a prick of a whining impotent shell of a vampire.  Worse.

_As she looked up at him, disbelief and terror in her eyes, he continued to pin her down, pulling aside her robe. Rage and desperation coursing through him, he reached down lower, to force himself into her, before feeling himself thrown against the bathroom wall behind him.  _

He'd not seen that kind of terror on her face before.  How many times had they fought each other—mock and real—and never had he seen that look.  He knew all of her expressions--hate, rage, shock, and the rest--but not this.  It turned his stomach.  And it had caused a self-loathing to arise that he could not explain away, nor live with.

Right, a few more trials.  _Bring it on, you wanker.   _

Hard, crusty fat little bugs wormed their way through his orifices, tunneling and squirming, crawling, sucking, and chewing their way deeper into his gut.  Only to find nothing of him, just her.  Everywhere, just her. The little black buggers swarmed through every inch of him and he took it--lasted it out until it had seemed there was nothing left of him but a hollow carcass.

Lurky's unearthly voice vibrated through the cavern, sounding far away and within his head at the same time.  "You have endured the trials."

****

_Bloody right I have, you holy fucker.  Waves of bitter sadness floated along a current of rage, taking him to why he was here.  Everything in him resisting, and with feelings akin to hate, he growled out the words:_

"Make me what I was, so I can give her what she deserves." 

The ancient demon reached forward and touched Spike's chest.

He felt it soar through him, burning open wounds and sorrows so piercingly painful, he thought he wouldn't survive.  Made the flaming fists and bug thing seem like acts of mercy. Then he passed out.

When he came to, he felt the cool night air flowing against his skin, his body rocking back and forth within a hand-made stretcher.  Six tall black women, each with a strong grip on the carrier, walked barefoot in a synchronized rolling gait.  They wore dresses made out of colorful cloth and draped in such a way that their muscular shoulders remained bare, reflecting the moonlight.  There were more women in front, one carrying a torch for light, and a few trailing behind.  They were chanting softly in a dialect he couldn't recognize, but that soothed the pain in his body and soul.  Every so often a woman came along side of him and gently wiped a cool wet cloth against his face and chest.  He tried to say something, but couldn't speak, all thoughts and words taking too much effort.  

After a time, the familiar sounds of village life—the occasional radio or rumble of an automobile--faded away.  The infrequent aura of electric lights disappeared completely, leaving a purity of night that nourished his vampiric cells. They continued carrying him along a narrow path for hours, deep into the wild plains.  At one point, only the sound of their chanting and occasional dialogue and laughter reassured him that he wasn't floating in space, lost.  Bird cries drifted through the air, accompanying the rhythmic clap of bare feet against hard earth. 

He lost consciousness before they reached the witch's clay hut.  When he awoke, he found that he had been laid out on a thick padded blanket, nude, except for a piece of soft fabric that had been skillfully twisted and wrapped into a loincloth.  A bowl of clear water had been set by his side.  

For days, he lay in a state seemingly outside of time, with floating images and strange sensations alone telling him of his existence.  Through the blurry thickness of his mind, he noticed a strange black woman appearing regularly, bringing him fresh water and blood--human blood.  She poured it through his dry cracked lips slowly, delicately, as if tending to Christ himself.  She probed, washed and massaged him--her fingers sliding against his skin like fine sandpaper, while droning low incantations.  

He had broken bones, torn muscles and ligaments, and organs that seemed to have forgotten their original shape and location.  He knew about brokenness, the physical kind, and found comfort in the familiarity of it.  He sank into the pain of his mending as if finding his way home.  It was the other that inspired visions of a valium drip.  

His consciousness journeyed into realms of hell and ecstasy, his body unable to move.  Sometimes it was as if he were within a nightmare, with bleeding corpses fucking him while tearing his insides out.  And sometimes he was in an incredible state of softness and beauty, so exquisite that he felt he would die of knowing God too intimately. 

Slowly, the drugged-like quality of his drifting awareness faded into a dull clarity, as if he had been dropped to earth with a thud of unblemished sight.  All he could see was what he was. 

Each moment shattered upon the next, projecting vivid images until he was shaking with violent tremors, and longing for the peace of ignorance.  Terrors that had for over a century fed his cravings, now shuddered through him in a continuous shrill wail, slicing his heart to pieces.  Each victim called to him to watch them die again, only in slow motion, with every nuance of agony, his own.  Over and over.  

He _had been a thing.  That was what __things, monsters did.  It was what had been in his nature to do, and he had done it beautifully.  With pristine clarity he watched as the pain and pleasures of his vampiric nature played itself out on the world.  There were no waves of guilt or self-flagellation, just clear panes through which he viewed his 150 years of existence, so sharp they cut through him as piercingly as his fangs had cut through countless arteries.  He felt saturated with a heart-wrenching sorrow beyond telling._

The brilliant brightness of it was unbearable; taking him into a pain that existed beyond words, that was so shatteringly stark he wanted to stake himself.  Each act of torture and murder, each life he had taken and the sorrow it had placed in the world, lay before him like glittering red beads, scattered as far as his eye could see.  

__________________________________________

Tonight was the night.  He slowly sat up and tested his strength.  After trying out a few stretches, he stood up.  His leg muscles shook with weakness, but all major muscle groups and bones seemed to be working.  He had been standing there, his head almost touching the ceiling, wearing only a hand-dyed ochre loincloth, when she walked in.

"Aiii!  He is up.  The vampire stands."  She bowed, in a mock sort of fashion.

"Who are you?"  Looking at her more closely, he added, "**_What are you?"  He was pretty sure she was human, but there lingered a small doubt.  Maybe it was the unearthly yellow of her short fuzzy hair, or the sharpness of her teeth, or the muscled lean torso attached to a face as wrinkled as a walnut, or more than anything, the odd bluish gleam in her eyes.  There was something about her that was just plain off.  The khaki shorts, fluorescent pink halter top, and puke green parrot on her shoulder screeching, "Vampire! Vampire!" didn't make her seem any more human like._**

"What_ am ****__I?"  She laughed a deep belly laugh that sounded like brown bags crumpling in the wind, and pointed at him. "What are ****__you?  A vampire with a soul dangling from his heart!  Now there's a sight."  She then turned to her parrot, "Shut up, Dracula."  _

Dracula?  Where the bloody hell was he?  The moment had more than a tinge of unreality to it.  The shaking was gaining in momentum.  He could sure use a smoke about now.  Looking around, he said, "Alright, now that we've made with the introductions, where's my bloody fags?"  He noticed a pile of neatly folded black clothes, standing out like a low scream in contrast to the brightly colored designs painted everywhere on the walls.  

"Fags?"  A British term, as I remember."  In a flash, she was next to him, her arm around his waist keeping him from falling.  The bird took that opportunity to nonchalantly step from her shoulder on to his, screeching, "I _said_, Vampire!  Where's my stake?"  

"So, you're thinking a smoke would do the trick?"  She asked sarcastically, while supporting him as he lowered himself back on to the bedroll.  Drac decided at that point to move to safer ground and hopped on to the dirt floor, hissing as he walked away, "Damned vamps."

Spike had been staring at the retreating parrot, perplexed, when an odd but familiar energy whipped through him.  She had power, old power.  And something else he couldn't quite put his finger on.  She was definitely not a witch to mess with.  

"Just might.  What did you do with my cigs, witch?  And what mojo have you worked on me?  An old bird like you ought to be careful who she slings her magics at, if you get my drift, love."  He threw her one of his more threatening glares, although its ability to instill fear had been significantly hampered by the fact that he was violently shaking, crumpled on the dirt floor in a semi-sitting position, and speckled with parrot shit.  Hard to maintain the upper hand that way.

Pulling a cigarette out of her pocket and handing it to him, she said, "Ahh, it must have been your charm that won her heart.  Oh wait, her heart is still flying free as a bird.  Clear to see why."  

"What do you know about that?"  

Taking a burning candle from a nook in the wall, she bent down and lit his cigarette.  "Hmm.  By "that", are we talking about the tender wooing of the woman of your dreams? You know, poetry, roses, sweet talk?  Oops, sorry, mistaken again, that was her lover before you.  No, I think your approach was more along the lines of pulling out the chains and shackles and throwing in a spattering of insults and barbs.  That always works."

Spike shook his head.  Who was she?  This couldn't be for real.  "Best not speak of matters that don't concern you, witch.  Where the hell am I?"  He took a drag, attempting to look calm, cool, and dangerous. 

Looking down at him, her hands on her bony hips, she sneered, "You know, for a 100-year-old vampire, you're certainly lacking in some basic charm and thrall skills.  You could learn a thing or two from Dracula. The vampire, or course."

He stopped mid-drag, his jaw dropping, "You know Dracula?"

She smiled, her eyes slightly glazing over as if recalling a delicious memory, "Ahh, yes, I know the Count.  Now there's a truly _evil_ vampire."  She looked down at Spike and frowned, as if to say that he wouldn't even register on the scale of evilness.  "Hmmm.  Yes, he and I are old, ah, friends, you could say.  He gave me Drac.  As a parting gift."  She looked around.  "Where is that bird?  Drac?"  With that she let out a few shrill whistles.  "Oh well, he tends to wander."

Spike was flabbergasted.  He leaned back against the wall, trying to sort things out in a logical manner.  She was clearly a witch.  Had some power.  But, had obviously gone bonkers.  Been alone in the wilds too long.  Best if he just played along and then got the hell out of here as soon as possible.  "Listen, witch.  You're pretty good with the insults yourself.  Now if you could just hand me my clothes, I'll be on my way."

The old crone walked towards the pile on the floor. "Oh there you are.  You bad boy.  No, you can't eat the idiot vamp's clothes."  The fat parrot had nestled into the stack and was viciously chewing, spitting out little pieces of black cloth on to the ground with violent shakes of his head.  The witch leaned down and put out her wrist, which dangled with an assortment of flashy bracelets.  "Come on, up you go.  You know how sensitive your digestion is."  Drac hopped onto her wrist, climbed up to her shoulder, and began crooning, "That old black magic, got me in a spell."

The witch twisted her head and gave Drac a kiss, then turned back to Spike.  "Sorry about that.  Just a few little holes."  She was holding his t-shirt, examining where the light sparkled through a multitude of tiny ragged tears.  "Drac has a tendency towards passive-aggressive behaviors.  What he can't outright kill, he finds ways of torturing. You might understand that dynamic."   

Okay, that did it.  Crazy or not, the witch had gone too far.  He glared at her while he tried to stand up.  "Listen you bag of bones, I've torn the throats out of bints far more mouthy than you without even blinking an eye."  He had intended to leap up, go into game face and show the daft old bird who she was dealing with, but before he could even raise himself slightly, she had leaned over and softly touched his chest.  A rush of power surged through him, throwing him into the wall behind him.

She stood looking at him with a steely gaze for a moment, then calmly walked over to him and extended out her hand.

Dazed, he muttered, "Back off, mum.  I've had enough of the dark powers playing with me."  Leaning back against the cool clay, he looked into her beady eyes and slowly asked in measured tones, "Who are you?  What do you know about me?"  He had figured she had some powers, but he had greatly underestimated her strength.  

"I know much about you, vampire."  Her voice became soft, falling on him like a rough caress.  She gracefully lowered herself into a squatting position within a few feet of him, reminding him of a heron as she rested on her thin legs, radiating a calmness that permeated the room.   She answered his question in a tone of patient strength, "I am, as you said, a witch.  What powers I have applied have been to help you heal.  The demon's games of chance are most often deadly in one fashion or another, even for those who think they have won." 

She paused before continuing, "My name is Ralph."

Right.  He rolled his eyes in disbelief, and smirked.  "Ralph?  Dracula?  Where am I?  The African version of _Sesame Street_?  What the bloody hell kind of name is Ralph? "

She smiled at him and said, "Ahh, and Spike.  Now there's a name that'll make a girl swoon."

With that, she tossed his shirt at him.  She then bent down and picked up his jeans from the floor, throwing them to him as she left.  After managing to pull his pants on, he collapsed upon his bedroll and rested for half an hour before venturing to move about again.  

The sounds of crickets pulsed through the open windows, and a cool breeze was flowing through the room.  He suddenly felt like he had to get outside into the night, the stars, the blackness, the moon.  It was a whining of a craving, like the way he yearned for the feel of Buffy's warm body next to his.  He had a need to sink into the dark ground of his basic nature and rest.  

The witch returned as if hearing him call her.  Without a word, she scooped up a blanket and took it outside, spreading it across a section of the ledge that overlooked the village.  She gave him a hand as he left the womb-like room.  He closed his eyes and inhaled the night air deeply, savoring the coolness of it and the mixture of wild scents. Then he stretched out on the blanket, basking in the starlit evening as if sunbathing by the ocean.  

The witch's place jutted out from the side of a steep hill on to a broad ledge, perched above a valley.  From where he lay, Spike could watch the movements of the villagers below, and he took comfort in the faraway quietness of it.  She sat with him awhile, neither of them speaking.  Then she left, returning with a bowl of blood for him to drink.  

He wondered where she had gotten the fresh human blood, "Tell me, Ralph, who's your supplier?"

She nodded toward the village. 

He wasn't surprised, since they seemed to be the only humans around, yet it confused him. "Right, no doubt there's a daily sacrifice of virgins to keep the local population of vamps fed and domesticated, and all that."

"Some are virgins, some aren't," and she laughed, "And some can't remember that far back."  She added sarcastically, "We have ways of gathering blood just short of ritual sacrifice."  She then looked at him, meeting his gaze directly.  "Their blood is for you to help you heal.  We no longer domesticate vampires for our entertainment and pleasure.  Just you."

Spike felt a tingling sensation rise up through his spine as she said those last words.    "So, where am I, old one?  What's the deal here?"

She did not answer him immediately, but took her time as if weighing her thoughts.  Closing her eyes, she spoke with words that carried the pulse of enthrallment, "There is _no deal.  You are far away, and right here--swimming the currents of your actions--swallowing your soul, as you find your way back to the source of that which claimed you."_

As she spoke, he felt a lightness travel through him, stealing his questions, replacing them with a vague yet definite knowing.  Her words became as fog, and he knew that he was exactly where he should be, at the hands of a witch and her village.   

Before he had been able to pursue that particular thread of understanding any further, she gently pushed the conversation in a different direction.

"So, you don't think my name is befitting such a powerful and dark witch as myself?

"Well, love, I can't exactly say it doesn't fit you.  I'm just saying it's not a name you'd normally hang on a woman, or a witch.  But, you know, it's you.  You better stick with it."

"It has not always been my name, as Spike has not been yours.  Things sometimes come to us in unpredictable ways, taking on the power to shape the future."

"Christ, Ralph, do you always talk in mystical riddles?  Cut the crap.  And, mind you, I'm not even wanting to know how you know my name.  Okay, so tell me, what's the story?  How did you come by your name?"  He didn't really care particularly about the history of her name or her insinuations about his.  He just wanted to continue to rest in the quiet rocking of her voice.  

She shifted her position so that she was sitting beside him, close enough that he could feel the subtle vibration of her heartbeat.  Her voice seemed to rise from deep within, spinning a web of rhythmic sounds and hypnotic images.  She talked of distant times, describing in rich detail an Africa of long ago.  She spoke of her life as a young woman, strong and with the skills and nature of a warrior.  And she told of how she had come to meet a strange and beautiful man.   

"I was Raaeolaphogusia, strong and willful.  Death was as familiar to me as my own hands, and I killed easily, with a hardness of heart and spirit.  He appeared one day as if walking out of a dream.  He stood before me, having traveled from far away in search of primal truths and powers.  He called me Ralph, for short.  It made him laugh, and caused me to smile.  He was with a group of Englishmen, trudging through our parched plains, seeking what was not theirs to know or wield.  The Elder of the village put it upon me to see that they found their way back, taking nothing with them but the laugh of hyenas.  She failed to warn me of the blue of his eyes that would wash through me, leaving me as transparent and open as the sea.  His foreignness melted away before me, to reveal a heart that beat with a passion as familiar and wild as my own.  Through him I came to know a vein of strength that bends with the wind and weeps as easily as rivers flow.  He released in me a gentleness of spirit that could embrace the sorrow and beauty of my being. We fell into a love for each other that bound us together until his death.  I had been Raaeolaphogusia, the warrior of death, and became Ralph, the laughable and powerful witch who now brings you fresh blood and cigarettes. "  

Spike felt young and small, like when his older sister had told him favorite fairytales to help him sleep at night.  Images of a wild Africa and a fierce dark warrior danced around him.  

And a tissue of sadness drifted across his heart.  _He released in me a gentleness of spirit that could embrace the sorrow and beauty of my being.  He had wanted his love for Buffy to be as shining and deep.  In the first movements of his soul's return he had been thrown into a pool of pure burning light.  His spirit had become clear and bright as if he were made of sparkling glass, in awe of each molecule of existence.  His heart had felt as if it had burst open and had been released of all yearnings except for one, to have her know this amazing purity of being, of love, his love for her.  _

His heart twisted into a dark knot of regret.   Instead he had tried to possess her, claim her, make her his.  He would have dragged her into the darkness of a soulless world and kept her his prisoner there, his own precious jewel, if she would have let him.  Tears of despair gathered in his eyes.  Slowly, he became aware that Ralph was watching him.

To break the pain of the moment, he asked "So, love, where does your little meeting with Dracula fit in here?"

Ralph continued to softly look into his eyes, and then looked away.  She took a breath, then chuckled, "Yes, Dracula and I.  Now, that's another story.  You'll have to earn that one."

It might be worth it, he thought to himself.  Not too many escaped Dracula's powers of enthrallment, let alone became the recipient of such an obnoxious gift as Drac.  He hoped the pieces of his one and only t-shirt would give the bird a good case of constipation.  Maybe it'd even be so painful a case as to shut its mouth for a while. 

The witch, who had been quiet, said, "So, a love story lies rooted within my name.  And your name—Spike—what lies within it?  Does it speak the truth of who you are?" 

He didn't have a quick comeback.  Her question didn't bounce off him as it would have a week earlier.  "Did, love.  Fit me perfectly.  Don't suppose things have changed.  Let's leave it at that."

*                *                  *

Within a couple of days he had most of his strength back, although he continued to experience frequent bouts of tremors, sometimes so bad he had to sit or lay down.  Some lasted for hours, and others longer.  At those times Ralph insisted that she work on him.  She massaged his quaking muscles and murmured low sounding chants that soaked into his skin like snake oil.  That usually didn't stop the shaking, only changed how it felt.   At times it became moderately cathartic and an odd form of grounding, as if something was finding its way through him, tying him to the earth in the process.

He started to go for walks at night.  The witch had asked him, in such a way as to be a command, not to go into the village.  That was fine with him: he didn't have any pressing need to introduce himself to the locals.  He didn't have any desire to pursue company of any kind.  Ralph was not to be avoided, she made sure of that.  Or he would have stayed clear of her too.  Didn't want no one around him.  

He tried to stop thinking when he was out roaming at night.  Just wanted to be in his senses, in his predatory nature, alert to the hunt.  But the thoughts wouldn't let him alone.  Thoughts, memories, emotions.  God, the emotions.  He had forgotten how saturatingly unbearable those buggers could be.  He had thought the pain he felt when he went to Anya for magics was excruciating—hell, that was a little bruise of a heartache compared to this.  This was like his heart was torn in shreds and being marinated in acid.  All he could see and hear were the thousands of people he had mutilated, tortured, or, hell, just said a cruel word to, for Christ's sake.  The range of his history of brutality was laid out before him in all its horrors and mundaneness.  No act of hurtful intent left out. 

He could understand William's relief at his soul's departure.  Not having a soul had been an amazing freedom and release.  Those little creeping feelers of sensitivity worming their way about, picking up not only what he felt, but what everyone around him felt, had been a constant pain in the ass.  William had an overabundance of those little suckers, with their accompanying commentary on right and proper thoughts and actions.  As he sat hunched over, rocking against the piercing pain in his chest, he cursed himself for his stupidity and longed for the clear absence of the soul's knowing,

One morning he found himself gazing toward the half-closed door, the brilliant sunlight shimmering in like a neon light along the floor calling to him.  It would be quick, easy.  Just as he was about to move in that direction, he spotted Ralph watching him.  She gave a sigh and came to where he stood.  "That's not the way out.  Not _your_ way out.  Someday your heart will leap into flames, as She bids.  It will be a birth, not a death."  She met his eyes in a steady gaze. "You can bear this."  She motioned for him to lie down.  She began massaging him in that way she had that felt like a moderate pummeling, and rubbed her stinky burning oils all over him, and chanted until his inner screams quieted into low moans, enough to bear.  

Spike wept.  Every night.  When he felt he was far enough away from the witch and the village, just him and the hollow sound of the breeze, he wept.  A black sorrow would soak through him and tears ran down his face like rain.  Sometimes a dark rage would come over him like a thunderstorm and he would let out an anguished roar while cold tears continued to fall. 

One night the Bit came to mind.

_You wanna know what I'm scared of Spike?…I must be something so horrible, to cause so much pain and evil.  _

_Rot.  _

_What do you know?  _

_I'm a vampire.  I **know **something about evil.  You're not evil. _

_Maybe I'm not evil.  But I don't think I can be good…_

_Well, I'm not good.  And I'm okay._

Gah, what a moron he was.  Which was a good thing for Dawn in that moment.  _Well, I'm not good.  And I'm okay.  _Made him feel like puking_. _ Right.  He was as fine as the guy next door.  It was like there had been a barrier between him and full knowing of what he was, something that made his acts appear two dimensional like flat pieces of a dark puzzle.  Between the two, a chip implant and a soulectomy, a vamp could dance through time like a fool thinking he was an alright guy, even a man, a man a Slayer could love.  

Memories of her passed before him. 

_Her blond hair glowing in the moonlight as she bounced through the cemetery, a stake in her hand and a pun on her lips, just waiting for the right moment.  The primal preciseness and speed of her athletic body when fighting, and her pleasure in it.  The golden gloss of her hair fanned out across his chest as she slowly moved against him, her hands clenching his, while he whispered in her ear sweet obscenities.  Her almost shy sideways glance, after biting and clawing him like a wild animal just moments earlier. _

God, he loved her.  Every bit of her.  Every bitchy inch. 

As soon as he had tasted her, the hunger had taken over.  His desire for her had knocked all sense out of him and he had thrown himself into trying to possess her.  Not that his love for her had been all that pure and unselfish before he had known the sweetness of her lips and breasts.  But it had had a certain amount of honor to it, even a small element of self-sacrifice.   Then she had reached for him.  He didn't stop for a second to ponder or care if he was what she really needed.  He had just taken, grabbed, and swaggered, the arrogant and desperate wanker he was.

What in the world caused her to touch him, to sleep with him?  Yeah, he could shag, he knew those moves.  But it took more than being good in the sack to catch the Slayer.  How had he managed to fool himself?  It wasn't him she had wanted.  It was the vampire she had come for--that simple. 

He had heard the stories. One being that the blood of a slayer was an aphrodisiac.  Which was only partially true, from his experience, which he didn't want to think about.  Another was that slayers were drawn to the energy of vampires and got off on it, especially sexually.  That, he personally could say, may be true.  The electric heat between them was like nothing he had ever felt before.  When they were touching, moving against each other, an energy had formed that was so alive he could see it, like a subtle shimmering aura around her.  She had come to life under his hands, as if she were lit by the sun.  He had felt his essence flowing into her, wave after wave.  

Like him, with his soul battering away at him, leaving him bruised and desperate inside, she had torn parts in her trying to heal, to find their way back into a wholeness.  She had reached for him out of a primal need to feel alive again.  He got that.  

When he thought of her, a blanket of embarrassed shame and horror would overcome him.  How could he have convinced himself that she loved him?  And how, how, could he have tried to rape her to prove it?  

A dizzying nausea had come over him that night as he saw her hurt on the bathroom floor.  Back at his crypt, the memories of it had made him crazy.  He had paced and cursed, and hadn't been able to make any sense of what he was feeling.  He shouldn't have felt anything; he was a demon.  But that he had hurt her caused him to feel an inner sickness that was foreign to him, and that he couldn't bear.  He had pounded his fists against his head, making low groaning and whimpering sounds, like a wounded animal.  

Then it had hit him.  He wasn't capable of love.  Without a soul, his feelings could only be a shadow of real love.  He would always be acting out of passions ultimately grounded in darkness and pain.  

That's when he had decided and it had caused him to rage and fight with himself all the way to Lurky's miserable cave.  Every bit of him, except for the tiny burning red hole in his heart, had screamed against getting back his soul.  But that small piece of burning passion had been insistent.

*               *                  *

While on his evening wanderings, he had found a spot where he could sit to have a smoke and mindlessly watch the routine comings and going of the villagers.  

Every night, shortly after sunset, a small group would head out into the surrounding plains led by a woman who had the posture and gait of a warrior.  They would return every morning just before the sun came up. The ritual of it caught his curiosity with its feeling of familiarity.

Several times as he was silently roaming, going about his nightly ritual of trying to contain his torment and sort it out, he heard someone or something tracking him, staying only close enough to watch him.  As he extended his senses, he could pick up the sound of a human heartbeat, and an energy that sent a quiet alarm through him.  He tried to backtrack and sneak up on the creature, but he or she was too wily for that.  Later, he asked Ralph what might be wandering the nights with him.

She let out a crusty laugh and said, "A curious and dangerous hunter, no doubt.  A white-haired vamp with a soul is not the usual sight around here.  You might want to be careful that you don't end up as somebody's prize catch."

Spike retorted with a bitterness that caught him off guard, "I'm no one's pet vamp, witch."  Then he scoffed, "Just cuz I happened to come across a soul don't mean I'm not still dangerous, you old bint.  I haven't had a good kill in awhile, and I was just wondering if what's hanging about out there might not be worth putting out the effort."  He moved into a predator stance as he talked, taking on his seriously evil look, stopping just short of shifting into game face.  But even to him, his words were like echoes falling through space, softly clunking to the ground from lack of passion.  He had no desire to beat up, let alone kill, anything.  Although he tried to convince himself a good fight was just what he needed to get the juices flowing again, he just didn't have the heart for it.  Sides, what had been lurking about him at night was human and would only give him a bloody headache if he took it on.  That's all he needed, a migraine on top of the shakes.  

One evening it became clear to him that there was no reason for him not to be heading out.  He was sitting on the earthen roof of the hut having a smoke, staring into the black night sky when she approached.  Her movements had been soundless, but he had felt her energy ripple through him as she came close--the strange ancientness of it reminding him again of something he couldn't place.  

"You are ready."

"For what, Ralph?  I'm ready for what?"  He understood what she meant, and the pain in his voice confirmed what she knew.  

"Perhaps you are ready to know more of what you are."

The shaking had started again.  "Sounds intriguing, Ralphina, but places to go and people to eat, that sort of thing."  He hadn't told her about the chip, though he guessed that somehow she knew. 

"Yes.  Your new trembling soul is eager to tear throats open.  I understand.  If you can stop shaking long enough."  

"You're a sarcastic and cruel old bitch, Ralph."  Taking a deep drag off his cigarette and exhaling, he said quietly, "You know, don't you?"

"Yes. " She reached out and barely touched the back of his head with her fingertip.  "I see the tiny electric web that pulses."  She almost sounded sad.  "Spike, there are many things I know about you.  I know what has brought you here.  I know what you seek.  And it is more than a soul."

The shaking escalated until he was sure she could feel the vibration of it from where she sat on her heels a few feet from him.  "Don't think I can handle much more than a soul, witch.  As it is, I may have to nick some Prozac when I hit civilization."

"From what I have seen, you are not one to choose the easy ways, impatient one.  Taking in a drifting soul is rather like swallowing the sun.  It will burn right through you with a heat and brightness that most could not bear."  She laughed softly, what almost sounded like a cackle. "And you reached right out and grabbed it, like a beautiful fool." She paused, then continued, "If you can contain the fire of your soul until it burns free, it will transform you in ways you cannot imagine."

"Right.  I think that was exactly what I was after here, Ralph.  Transformation.  Although, I admit, I didn't think it all the way through.  Since you seem to know all about me, you probably have a clue that I'm mad, like in out of my mind.  Crazy in love.  It's her that's burning through me like a wild fire.  Had some thought that my getting a soul would make me capable of loving her the way I yearned to, the way she needed.  That's what I was desperate for."  Spike grew quiet as he softly added, "Hell, witch, I'm pretty sure I'm not much more capable of loving her any better than before.  And I'm positive that a soul hasn't changed what I've been, or lessened the demon in me.  Here I am, being fried from the inside out and wondering what's been the use of it all.  It's as clear as the lack of a heartbeat in my chest that I'm the last thing she needs, ever, whether I love her well or not."  He pulled out his flask, taking a swig of what little was left.  

"There is a reason you are here, and not perhaps the one you think.  There is much you might learn."  She spoke with that deep wise voice again, the one that said more than the crisp of words that floated between them.

"Again with the mystic inferences.  I am not thinking there's any reason I'm here, other than being dragged off by your Amazon minions.  Don't remember being asked if I wanted the ride."  He felt a need to throw out some snarkyness, just to reassure himself he still had it in him. 

In truth, he wasn't eager to move on.  Where would he go?  He had thought of London, but couldn't get excited about wandering midst the drizzle and fog.  He had no reason to return to Sunnydale.  Buffy didn't need him--just the opposite.  And Dawn would be better off without him.  At the thought of Dawn, he felt a surge of tender and protective love well up in his chest, wrapped in the brittle veil of his betrayal.  

He lay back, putting his hands behind his head, and sighed.

"What do you have in mind Ralph? "

***              *                ***

As the ritual began, they sat across from each other, weighing the power between them.  When face to face with the witch and her black seed-like eyes, Spike had a tendency to shrink inside, for which he overcompensated by moving into a casual slouch and putting on a penetrating gaze.  

Normally the witch might make a sarcastic remark, nailing him with the obvious.  It was part of what had caused him to begin to like being around her.  He couldn't fool her—although he still occasionally made the effort just out of habit.

He continued to watch her as she moved deeper and deeper into trance, softly mumbling strange-sounding words and incantations.  Her eyes became glassy and completely black, the way Red's did when she was into the magics.  What was really scary, making the damp fogginess of London seem suddenly appealing, was her outfit.  Her usual fluorescent colored halter-top and shorts had been replaced with a minimum of body coverage fashioned out of leopard skins.  And instead of her mouthy parrot perched on her shoulder, she had on a headpiece made up of beads and feathers from the bird's relatives.  She had covered her face and a large part of her leathery body with mud-based paint, adding dots and stripes of red, orange and white pigments here and there.  In her hand she had a gourd and was shaking it in a rhythm that seemed to dance in tune to his own quaking bits.  

Candles were lit and set around the room.  Ralph had drawn a mandala with earth pigments on the ground between them and had placed an impressively large uncut amethyst in the center.  Incense was spiraling around the dark chamber like a lost spirit.  Faraway drumbeats and chanting drifted in upon the currents of night air.

Then she spoke.

"The body has healed.  But the soul has not found rest in the heart of this vampire."  

Slowly pronouncing each word, she poked her forefinger directly into the pale skin over his heart, causing a surge of sensation to burst open like a small fire, creating a sweet, sucking, pain. Taking refuge in her eyes, he surrendered to her will, which took him into a dark inner stillness.

"A vampire is a mysterious creature.  Death's lover and companion, yet undying.  A tender heart, the point of vulnerability."

Her words toyed with him, catching hold of places that made no sense.   His eyes became lost in her face, which seemed as old as the sun.  

"What love you possess, or, perhaps, unfortunate karma, to have earned the return of your soul, warrior.  Now, you must find your innocence or you will divide into bitter, confused pieces."

Reaching behind her, she picked up something.  Turning, she placed before him a cup formed out of a human skull.  Noting that there had been a time he would have fancied such an object as a nice touch for the old crypt, he now only numbly observed that it held blood, with a thick black froth bubbling on top.  The smell of the strange mix drifted up to his nostrils, mostly unidentifiable, except for the pungent scent of fresh blood.  Placing the skull cup into his hand, and looking into his eyes, she whispered, "Trust me, poet."  

Placing her right hand over his heart, she added, "Drink it slowly.  It will bring Her to you."

Right.  What did he have to lose? 

Taking the skull cup and bringing it to his lips, he tasted the mix of blood and magics.  A little bitter, but rich.  Stopping  mid-swallow, Spike looked up surprised, meeting the wise one's sharp black eyes, squinting with tender amusement.  His body began dissolving softly, floating away through mental mists, while one clear question reverberated through his soggy mind: How had she come across the blood of a Slayer? __


	3. Karma

Again, endless thanks and appreciation for Chase who

tirelessly drags me through rewrite after rewrite.  

********

**DARK TIDES**

by Saj

Chapter 3

Karma

"The myriad past, it enters us and disappears.  Except that 

within it somewhere, like diamonds, exist the fragments that 

refuse to be consumed."

Denise Levertov

It was the dream of Kendra that had caused her to realize the depth of fatigue she felt and her longing for release. 

_Her blood drained from her body in a sensual flow whispering of freedom.  The darkly velvet peace that came over her was a balm sweeter than the heaven she had been pulled from.  His voice gently fell around her like a soft blanket, "Rest, love." _

Kendra's vulnerability was her innocence.  Hers was the struggle between her hunger for life, and her yearning for death.  Spike seemed dangerous either way.  She felt certain that if she kept going to him, that some essential aspect of herself would be lost, perhaps even willingly surrendered.  She knew that Spike's love for her was as real and palpable as in the dream, but it was a soulless love.  How could it ultimately result in anything other than death in one form or another?  

And so she had decided.

_"It's over…it's killing me.  I'm sorry…William."_

_Each word tore a gaping hole in her, but she wouldn't show the pain of it.  He must not see any opening, have any hope.  As quiet and direct as a falling star the finality of her words registered in his eyes.  Her heart clenched in a low scream as she walked away from him, while the moon showered icy light across the path__taking her from the grounding fire of his touch._

Buffy stood where she had that night.  The questioning hurt that had spread across his face was as clear to her as if he were standing in front of her now.  Taking a deep breath, she stepped forward, and entered the shadowy crypt.  Slowly, down one step, then another, crossing time and space. 

The words tumbled through the air, like dice slowly spinning in a dream. 

_"It's over…it's killing me."_  __

The crypt stood exposed before her, cold and dark, glittering here and there with pale moonlight.

The last time she had been here, she had been checking on Clem.  The place had felt cozy and safe in a hobbit-like way.  Which was way different than the Spike ambiance she had come to know.  She had experienced a sort of predictable and not unsatisfying irritability here in those days--after she had stopped wanting to kill him.  Then, overnight, the feelings of being in his crypt had erupted into a more complex mix-a swirling of passion, anger, desire, and fear.  Sort of what she was feeling right now.   Only she could add sadness to the list.  A sadness as empty and memory-ridden as the abandoned crypt.

Buffy went over to the arched window that made the corner of the crypt seem as if it were part of a French chapel.  She found the stash of matches and lit the central grouping of white candles.  

A heavy tiredness came over her.  She took off her backpack, walked to the sarcophagus and slowly lay down the length of it.  It was like sinking into a rock, like resting in the strength and solidity that had been Spike.  Bringing her forearm over her head, she stared up into the ceiling and watched the play of moonlight and shadows.  It was here that she had come when she needed a safe place for Dawn.  It was to him that she had turned when she needed to share her truths.  Then it had changed.  All sense of refuge was blown to bits with their first kiss.  Time bent backwards, struggling to find its balance within a battering of passions.  

"Tell me you love me?"  

Spike looked at her with a steady soft gaze and answered, "You know I do."  

His words weren't enough to dissolve the ache.  "Tell me you want me."  

He moved towards her with his eyes.  "I always want you."  

She pulled him to her as they moved to the sarcophagus. He gently set her body along the flat, cold surface, placing himself on top of her.  They looked into each others' eyes, quietly, with an anticipatory knowing of the other's places and touches. She felt a sad ache as empty and as endless as her passion.  She reached for him.  He tenderly kissed her, stroked her, whispered to her, and brought himself into her as if trying to fill her with his love.  Each of her cells seemed drenched in his.  He held her while touching every tender and soft spot on her.  Her wounded places softened around him, caressing him with a hungry yearning. She touched him with a tenderness that she had not allowed herself to feel before, as she bathed in the depth of his love and willingness to throw himself away for her.  The transparency of his feelings, passing across his face like gentle clouds, almost broke her heart.  She drank in the way he rested inside her after he came, as if he were basking in the forbidden sun.****

_"I have feelings for you, I do."  _

Since Spike had left, the layers of night had begun to slowly open their secrets to her.  With his absence, she was suddenly thrown into a space that practically screamed what she had not allowed herself to know while caught in the intensity of her passion for him. 

_"But its not love."  _

Spike had known it was there, deeply buried, and had tried to rip it out of her.  It was true. She had a timeless and primitive love hidden in her heart for him.  It wasn't necessarily tender, sweet or kind.  

_"I could never trust you enough for it to be love."_

Her love was primal and unknowable, dangerous, and as rich and thick as blood.  It simply was.  Like the sun, the moon, the stars.  It existed in its own nature. 

It had been that one time, when their bodies moved into each other gently and sweetly, that she had felt it.  

She was shaking.  She got up and walked over to where her backpack was and unzipping it, reached in and slowly pulled out, length by length, the black leather of Spike's duster.  She lay back down on the sarcophagus shivering, and gathered the soft strength of the leather around her, tracing her fingers slowly in comforting patterns along the shoulder.  It still carried Spike's energy, as her body kept sending out faint, familiar vibrations, as if trying to alert her to his closeness.  She closed her eyes and vividlyrecalled the quiet lightning of recognition and arousal that had crackled between them.

He had been right.  They had always danced.  There had been sparkage between them the first time she saw him in the alley, when he had stepped out of the shadows clapping his hands in mock appreciation.

"Nice work, love."

It was a choreographed display, his body forming a casual jeer, taut in cautious readiness.  His wily respect and appreciation for a Slayer was written across his face in the sneer of his smile.

"Who are you?" She asked.  

A cold knowing spread through her chest as she took in his exquisite and cruel beauty.  She had seen his face and that confident threatening look before.  Without ever having fought him, she knew his moves and the feel of his fists brutally pounding her.  She shrugged off the dream-like awareness, dismissing the alarm sounding from within it.

"You'll find out on Saturday."

What's Saturday?" she asked, confused.  

And he answered, without skipping a beat, "The day I kill you."

Branches were scratching and scraping against the dead walls.  Every now and then there was the sound of rain softly tapping against glass and marble.  Buffy looked around and studied the hollow space.  She knew how each object felt to her touch.  It may have been from throwing it across the room, or landing her bare butt on top of it, but not much in Spike's crypt had escaped her contact. 

She realized as she was inventorying Spike's crypt, that she had been softly rubbing the small charm she had attached to her chain necklace earlier in the evening.  It was a small hand-carved goddess made out of a pale translucent jade.  

It had been in Spike's duster.  Buffy had come across the coat accidentally as she was looking for a pair of boots in the hall closet.  Someone had thrown it into a heap on the floor, where it had remained unnoticed until that day.  

_She reached down to touch it, not recognizing it at first.  As soon as her fingers stroked the soft leather, she knew.  Slowly pulling it out of the closet, a mix of longing and fear pulsed through her.  She held the coat gingerly, turning it in her hands, letting her emotions settle as she took in every part of it.  As she ran her fingers over a portion of battered leather, she felt a small hard object.  In a small inside pocket she discovered the charm.  She placed it into the palm of her hand as if it were a precious jewel, absorbed in the beauty and mystery of it.  She wondered how Spike had come across such a thing._****_ As she traced her fingers along the relief of the miniature_**_, _**_she picked up a slight vibration.  Centering herself, she focused on the nature of the energy, feeling it merge with her own as her consciousness began to blur and fade. _

****

China.  1900.  A temple.  The smell of incense floating upon the winds of revolution.  Chaos was as wild that starless night as the statute of Buddha was seamlessly still.

She was at the marketplace shopping for the teas her mother liked, when she turned and saw him smiling at her from the shadows.  He had a wildness about him.  Her senses began to send out a familiar hum.  His strange blue eyes shouted at her, mocking her from across the crowded square.  She heard them announce the certainty of her defeat.  Yet, she knew she would run to meet him that night as if he were her lover. 

After preparing her mother's favorite foods for the evening meal, she sought out her teacher, Wupshi.  The wise one was quiet as she told her of the foreign vampire.  Wupshi looked into her heart silently, the way she did when she had first approached her a few years earlier.  Her teacher's dark eyes became moist and she bowed her head, honoring her.  Tears slid down Shan-Ling's porcelain smooth, young face.  Wupshi reached for her hands, and as she placed her hands in Wupshi's, she felt a peaceful strength course through her.  Her teacher then began the ancient chant, and stood to light a row of small red candles.  She motioned for her to enter into a state of meditation.  As she sank into the well of inner silence, her teacher continued to chant and walk the sacred pattern around her.  Her mind rose up to meet the eyes of her teacher when the shrine room had become quiet.  Wupshi pressed into her hands a small package wrapped in purple silk.  She knew what she was to do.  They sat together for awhile, silent; then she left behind her fear and innocence as she took the narrow rocky path back to her home.

Once in her tiny room, Shan-Ling lit a candle at her altar and offered incense to Kwan Yin, the goddess of compassion.  She bathed herself, gently expressing appreciation for the strong body that had served her so well.  She stood bare with only the touch of the translucent charm, a hand-carved jade goddess, dangling against her throat upon a silver chain.  Wupshi had given it to her as a gift after her first vampire kill, saying it would offer her protection and keep her heart open.  She stroked it lightly and brought it up to her forehead briefly, whispering a prayer.

She asked that the Gods and Goddesses bless her body while she meditatively placed delicate dabs of jasmine oil at her throat and on her heart, and then carefully dressed.  She chose the dark green brocade pants and shirt her mother had made for her.  She tucked into her pocket the polished rosewood stake her teacher had given her on her 17th birthday.  The handle was carved into an intricate rendering of two snakes writhing in sexual union, devouring one another.  The point of the stake was razor sharp.  

She went to a small drawer in her dresser, her fingers tracing the lines of the carved ivory knob, the face of a demon.  She pulled open the drawer and took out a small hand-bound book.  Taking it to her desk that was low to the floor, she sat on her knees and opened the book.  She picked up a calligraphic brush and began to write.  

After awhile she rose and went over to her shrine and knelt, touching her head gently to the floor, calling upon the spirit of the demon that would take her.  She sang the song her teacher had taught her, the sacred chant that named her blood as his, his as hers.  She carefully cut her wrist, letting her blood fall into a small turquoise bowl.  She bandaged the cut, and then pulled out the packet Wupshi had handed to her.  Bowing her head, she opened the cloth and shook the contents into the bowl, mixing it in with her blood.  She continued to chant while adding sacred water to the mixture.  She then slowly drank the potion that would entwine her destiny with his as perfectly and delicately as an intricate love knot.  She prayed that as her life became his, that his heart would fold in upon itself under the weight of unerring karma--to unexpectedly flutter open, when called.  Or, in the alternative, that the spell's passion would drive the monster as quickly as possible into the path of the next slayer's stake.

The last ritual she performed before leaving her room was to gently close her journal and place it in an embroidered silk carrier.  As she left her house, she handed it to a female servant, giving her instructions in a soft precise voice.

Shan-Ling took down the sword she kept near the door,attached it to a ring on her belt and walked out into the night, not looking back.

She could feel his presence hidden in the shadows of the temple, waiting for her.  He slowly stepped out of the darkness, circling her, his piercing eyes never leaving hers.  "Now aren't you a sweet one, love.  All dressed up for our date are you now?"  He kept talking to her, softly, almost in a soothing tone, while a soft growl rumbled from his chest.  His words fell like a net around her, foreign clumsy sounds meant to throw her off.  

Their battle was fierce and passionate.  For a second in time he was hers.  The sea thundered in his eyes, fearless and defiant as she poised to stake him.  Then the force of fate shook the temple, handing the win to him, assuring his dark path.  He took her quickly, dripping with arrogant ignorance. The karmic contract was sealed as his fangs ripped into her neck, savagely claiming her blood as his.

As the vision ended, Buffy had heard a voice: "He has not been forgotten, nor lost.  His name has been carved into the heart of beginnings, and has been called."****

Buffy pulled the heavy duster up around her, leaving only her eyes uncovered.  The wind outside had died down, leaving a thick quietness in the crypt.  The candles had burned low, giving off wild jerking shadows and an occasional spitting fizzle as a flame died.  She could see the face of the Chinese slayer as clear as a photograph, and feel the smooth innocence of her young skin.  She understood that Shan-Ling had, in the end, surrendered herself as if offering to Spike a precious and awful gift. 

As soon as she had oriented herself after the vision had ended, she had called Giles.  

"Buffy, what is it?  Are you okay?"

"Giles, I'm not sure.  I'm okay, I guess.  But I just had the most incredible experience.  I told you that my dreams were changing, remember?  And that I was dreaming of slayers?"

"Yes. Have you had another?"  He sounded concerned and intrigued at the same time.  "You must write these down**, **you know.  Now tell me what happened in the dream, exactly."

Why did she feel like a participant in a study?  Because, she was.  Okay.  "This wasn't a dream.  It was more like a vision.  It just happened.  I found a charm in Spike's coat and was looking at it, when, whoosh, I was in China.  I was the slayer that Spike killed.  Giles, it was hers, the charm."

There was silence on the other end.

"Giles, did you hear me?"

"Yes.  So you weren't dreaming. Has this happened before?"

"No.  Never."

She described the vision in as much detail as she could.  Just hearing Giles' voice calmed her.  When she started to describe Shan-Ling writing in her book, she stopped mid-sentence.  

"Giles, I was the Chinese slayer in the vision, but I was mostly me sort of watching her.  I didn't clearly experience what she was actually thinking or writing.  It felt like she was sending what she wrote to her teacher, who was sort of like a watcher.  Do you think the Council library might have what she wrote?"

"That would be unlikely.  Her teacher wasn't a Watcher.  But there was a Watcher there during the Boxer Rebellion.  The Council knew of the slayer but couldn't establish contact with her.  Let me pull out the Watcher's notes and see what else we have.  Now, go on.  What happened next?"

Buffy described how she had performed the ritual and drank the potion of blood.  As she described it, she recalled the feeling of power that had slowly coursed through her body as the magic had made its way through her.  

Giles' voice pulled her out of her remembering.  "Now this is very, very interesting.  I've heard something about such a spell.  The power of a slayer to enthrall a vampire, or some such thing.  Fascinating.  We thought it was a vampire myth.  What was your feeling in the vision about what the spell was supposed to do**, **exactly?" 

"I'm not sure I can put it into words.  It seemed as if she was making him hers.  As if he would be marked.  It felt like a net was being thrown out that would pull him in towards future slayers.  He would be drawn towards them with a passion that would confuse and seduce him.  And that it was two-edged.  Either way he was caught.  That's as clear as I can be.  You've heard of something like this?"

There was silence for a second.  Then Giles said, "Possibly.  The witch I mentioned that has been meeting with us--her name is, ah, Ralph--said something about a spell similar to this.  I will have to check my notes.  I don't think the Council has any information on this other than a short reference regarding early vampire clans' beliefs that slayers had the power to bewitch them, to put them into a state of thrall.  What I remember doesn't quite sound like this.  I'll do some research.  Now, finish telling me about the vision."

Buffy described the battle between Spike and Shan-Ling.  As she talked she thought about all the times she had fought Spike, yet this particular fight was both familiar and different.  He looked strange in his dated clothes and with his hair so long and dark.  His fighting was less skilled, but more passionate, if that was possible.  He had a way about him in the vision she didn't recognize.  It was a youthful wildness that was even more reckless and arrogant than she knew of him.

"And the voice said that he was called?"

"Yes.  The voice said that he was not forgotten, that he was on a beginner's list or something, and was being called."

"Did the voice sound familiar?"

"It _felt_ more than familiar. It was a part of me.  An ancient part that knows what I am.  What all slayers are."

Buffy stepped down from the sarcophagus and stretched.  She took Spike's duster, walked over to the chair and curled up in it, twisting the coat around her creating a warm inner space like a dark womb.  

After the vision of Shan-Ling, she had come back to herself, standing in the hallway, the talisman still in her hand and the duster crumpled at her feet.  She had felt unfocused and disoriented, her body zinging with adrenaline.  Her right hand had been clenched as if she still held the rosewood stake.  It had taken her awhile to find her ground again and when she did she dropped the charm back in the little pocket and scooping up the leather coat, she had walked into the training room and dumped it in the back of a large weapons chest.  

Whenever she had come to the huge chest after that to choose a weapon, she would find her gaze wandering to the clump of black leather.  She had repeatedly felt compelled to stop and study it, as if waiting for it to talk to her in a secret language. There was something hidden in it she had been able to feel but not name, and it was important.  It was about her.

Standing before the weapons chest, Buffy was about to reach for a sword when the black leather caught her eye.  Her hand abandoned its goal and instead drifted to the coat and gently stroked it.  Without thinking, she pulled it out of the chest and slowly, as if in a dream, put it on.  It fell around her soft and heavy like a magical cloak.  She stretched out her arms, closed her eyes and began to slowly turn, feeling the air gather within the dark folds, causing them to billow like huge wings.  The scent of cigarettes, liquor, hair gel, blood and ashes all mingled together and clouded the air with the feel and taste of Spike.  And something not Spike, not him at all.  A hardly perceptible vibration registered, a slayer's energy.  She quickly stopped turning and the coat wrapped itself around her like a cocoon for a minute before releasing itself to hang loosely, as if waiting for her next move.  

Buffy walked to a spot in the room where the sun filtered in from the windows above, flickering into lacy patterns on the wood floor.  Standing still, she concentrated on the slight tingling traveling through her nerves.  She brought her hands in front of her, slightly apart and below her heart, and slowly began to move into the grace and flow of tai chi, aligning her senses with the rhythm of the soft slayer buzz entering her. The coat's weight gently and steadily pulled her towards the earth, while her slayer strength pushed upwards and took advantage of the duster's heaviness, transforming it into additional power.  She slowly raised her right leg, slightly bent at the knee, and even more slowly stretched it out toward her right, lowering her foot to barely touch the floor as she turned with her left hand leading, like a bird coasting upon air currents, while the wings of the dark coat flowed with her like an enraptured shadow.  

_She moved from one position to another silently, slowly, over and over again, until the edges of her awareness began to fray and drift.  Her mind became still and quiet, her body floating upwards_**_, _**_following the path of sparkling dust amidst the sunlight, dancing toward the clear blue sky like a mythical black bird.  Dreamily floating higher and higher, she passed through one cloud after another, until she was far, far away, feeling perfectly and sweetly at peace._

Suddenly the harsh sounds of a city jerked her consciousness to attention.  Buffy opened her eyes and saw that she was plummeting, tumbling faster and faster towards the earth.  There was a second when all things went silent as time stopped, and she was staring into the ebony eyes of a young African-American woman whose long dark fingers were reaching for the duster, curling around a shoulder, pulling it on.  As the dark leather embraced the woman, the world of speed and sound returned and Buffy fell into the woman's body and consciousness.

Nikki pulled her coat closer around her as she watched him step out of the concert hall into the alley with the rest of the crowd.  She noted that his companion, Drusilla, was with him and shuddered.  That woman had the power of black magic, and she planned to stay as far from her as possible.  But him, that was another story.  He was the one she was after.  He had killed a slayer.  She felt duty-bound to see that he didn't have the chance to claim another.  

She studied him, how he moved, his probable weight, his height, any weapons he might be hiding.  She casually scanned his body, noting the worn blue jeans hanging from his narrow hips, the black leather vest, his muscular bare arms, the short punk white-blond hair, and the multiple body piercings.  His outfit didn't seem to hide much of anything.  Especially his arrogance, which flashed about like a shiny switchblade.  As she measured him for battle, she felt his attention turn her way.  He had stopped and was casually and intently looking straight into her, and she looked directly back.  His eyes were calm, clear and focused, his body still and centered.  Then Drusilla noticed her, returning her cool gaze before turning to Spike to whisper in his ear, tugging at his arm.  He didn't budge; not a muscle acquiesced.  Their eye contact didn't waiver.  Then he slowly smiled and nodded at her, and turned and disappeared with Drusilla into the crowd.

She had heard he was in New York and she had been single-mindedly on the hunt for him for days.   But she hadn't been prepared for the hot chill that had run through her as their eyes met.  That cool blueness that flickered with humor and passion had thrown her off. The sure determination with which she had pursued him had suffered an unexpected hit.  A slight, but noticeable wariness and hesitation had taken hold.  Feeling a little puzzled, then angry, she called to mind the rash of brutal deaths that had occurred since he and Drusilla had arrived.  She especially remembered the small bloody body of a 10-year-old girl she had found in the woods.  Spike was in her territory now, and his number was up.

Nikki quickly crossed the alley and followed the couple, merging with the concert crowd as it moved towards the subway station.  He knew she was there.  She could feel it.  She kept the platinum of his hair in sight as she wove in and out of the crowd.  She hung back as they approached the train platforms.  Spike stopped and whispered into Drusilla's ear and gave her a slight shove towards a waiting train.  She looked at him quickly, a frown on her face, and then boarded the train.  What was this?  Nikki pulled back further into the shadows, her right hand wrapped around a stake in her inside pocket.  

Then, somehow he was right in front of her, his head tilted slightly forward, looking up at her through long dark lashes.  

"Hello, love.  Fancy meeting you here, now.  It must be my lucky night, I haven't come across a slayer in awhile.  And what is it you might be wanting from me, pet?  A dance or two?  Perhaps a quick shag?"

The crowd had disappeared.  There was just dark dusty space between them, lit only by the occasional dim lantern and the smoldering end of the cigarette that dangled from his sensual and confident mouth.  He was circling her like a cat closing in on its prey, his eyes not leaving hers, his muscles tensing in anticipation.  

She was mesmerized by the fluidity of his slow circular stalking, a strange pull drawing her towards him.  Could he have her in thrall?  Nikki tightened her grip on the stake and decided he was far too dangerous to play with. 

She began gliding to her left, moving in closer to him.  "What's a shag?  Whatever, I don't have the time."  Nikki threw herself to the side, kicking out her leg at an angle that caught his left calf**, **knocking him backwards off his feet to the pavement.  She was immediately astride him, her stake poised in her right hand, her left hand on his throat.  As she was bringing the stake down with just the right amount of pressure to plunge it cleanly through his heart, he grabbed her right wrist with a free hand and smashed his other fist into her jaw.  She would have been thrown into the wall behind her if he hadn't maintained his hold and jerked her to the ground, while rolling over on top of her.  He straddled her while pinning both of her wrists against the dirty concrete, a grin on his face.  He leaned down and whispered in a voice as silky as sex, "Shagging doesn't need to take but a minute, love, though it's a touch more satisfying if one can linger a bit. I'd be glad to demonstrate the moves."  

As the words rolled into the air upon a ghostly cool wisp of warning, she felt him begin to slowly grind against her, his hardness pressing into her where it was impossible to ignore.  She raised her hips slightly, preparing to bring her legs up to catch his head in a scissor hold, but instead found her hips moving against him, matching the rhythm he set, momentarily abandoning her battle tactics.  Her heart was beating so fast and hard that they both could hear it pounding between them.  

"Tempting as it is," she said in between short breaths while moving her hips in one last dangerously delicious grind against him, "I think I hear my mother calling."  She quickly twisted her hip and brought her left leg up around his neck, pulling him to her side as she mounted him, pinning his upper arms with her knees and holding each of his wrists.  "Besides, I generally prefer not to fuck a vamp before I kill him.  Bad slayer etiquette."

They both knew they were in a stalled position, that she couldn't stake him while both of her hands were occupied holding him down.  He was quietly laughing, his eyes sparking.

"Now tell me, pet, just when did slayers cultivate the art of good manners?  In vampire circles it's thought of as only polite to shag a bloke before you turn him to ashes."  He was quiet a minute, his muscles as relaxed as if he were getting a massage.  "Well, actually, love, that's more of a personal fantasy."  The heat radiating from their primary area of contact was crashing upon her in seductive waves.  "So, Slayer**, **have you ever fucked a vampire?" He asked so lowit was almost a whisper, flowing into the small space between them, causing her mind to melt into white noise.

They maintained intense eye contact while electric heat pulsated through them.  She knew he could smell her arousal, if he was so insensitive as to not note the wetness coming through the crotch of her jeans.  The attraction was primitive and familiar, as if it was exactly in her nature to fuck him and _then_ kill him.  It not only had its quirky appeal, but it seemed perfectly the right way to go about it.  God, he _did_ have her in thrall, she thought. 

Increasing the strength of her hold, she leaned forward, her lips brushing against his, and said, "In your dreams."  

Before he could respond, she leapt off him and sprinted across the station, racing up the stairs and into the city, the smug sound of his laughter following her.

Nikki got home as the sun was coming up.  She unlocked the door to her studio apartment on the third floor of the old red brick building and cautiously stepped in, slowly looking around.  She felt uneasy, as if he could be anywhere, any moment.  She had killed hundreds of vamps, but she had never felt as terrified as she felt of Spike.  She was as frightened of her desire for him as she was of his ability to kill her.  Made her feel a little crazy.  

She sighed and shrugged off the black leather coat, letting it drop on to the twin bed.  Except for a Judy Chicago poster which hung over the bed, the mint green walls were bare, with only a few strips of peeling paint to catch the eye.  Nikki heated some water, made a cup of instant coffee and went to a kitchen cupboard that had a faded photo of Angela Davis tacked to it.  She pulled out a tin and a handful of biscuits, grabbed her coffee and went to the old-fashioned yellow kitchen table, sitting down in the only chair in the apartment.  She slumped back into the wooden chair, mindlessly drank her coffee and finished the biscuits.

Exhausted, she went to the narrow bed and lay down, pulling her black leather coat over her.  She stared blankly at the ceiling, watching a spider spinning its web in the crevice above her.  Her body ached, each muscle still tense.  Images of him played through her mind as she surrendered to sleep, and the last thing her consciousness conjured was the sound of his voice whispering to her, "I am yours, love, all yours."  

It was early evening before she woke up.  She got off the bed and went to the bathroom to run a hot shower and stepped in, letting the heat relax her tight muscles.  Nikki ran a quick blast of cold water over her body, dried off with a rough towel, and got dressed in loose workout clothes.  Returning to the living room, she lit a candle on the table and turned off all the lights.  

Her athletic body slowly sank to the yellowed linoleum floor in a sleek controlled motion, like wax melting, moving into a cross-legged meditation pose in which she remained for a long time, unmoving. Then, like a sculpture coming to life, Nikki's disciplined form slowly stretched upward before bending forward, moving into a prostration, resting her forehead against the floor.  Coming gracefully to her feet, she began to perform the movements of tai chi, every inch of her muscular body focused with a concentration so intense that the Slayer's life force rippled through the room as she flowed from one position into another, like a shadow disappearing in and out of the flickering candlelight. 

It was 1:00 in the morning when Nikki changed into street clothes and prepared to leave.  She did one last thing.  Going to her dresser, she pulled out a small box from the top drawer.  Opening it, she took out a silver ring and held it, rolling it gently between her fingers, before slipping it on her left ring finger.  It was a slayer's ring and had been given to her by her Watcher.  It had become her talisman, and she believed that it increased her strength and presence of mind, as if the previous slayer's powers became part of her.  She wore it when she didn't feel totally confident in her strength, or when her enemy was especially dangerous.  

She donned the black leather coat and went out the door.

As she walked down the steps towards the spot where she and Spike fought earlier, she felt his presence.  She moved forward in the direction of his energy.  One step at a time, carefully, slowly, her right hand holding a stake, ready.  The warning vibration became more intense with each step.  

"You're right on time, love.  I like that in a slayer.  You know, predictability."  He stepped out of the dark so that he was partially lit by a nearby lantern.  The angles and planes of his face were made all the more dramatic by the play of shadows on his luminous skin.  He inhabited his body as if he had created it himself.  He was lean and muscular and moved with the grace and power of a mythical creature.

Nikki kept walking towards him, her slayer senses screaming as she softly said, "Thinking of you got me hot."  She took another step closer, and added,  "To kill you."

Spike glided forward in a slow snaking movement, smiling at her, looking into her eyes, "Dreamt of you, pet.  In it I couldn't decide whether to kill or shag you."  His tone changed and his eyes became fierce, angry, then golden yellow as he morphed into game face. "Decided killing you would be a lot more satisfying."  

The battle began in earnest, and they furiously fought each other until they found themselves face to face in an empty subway car on a moving train.  He repeatedly punched her until she was on the floor of the car with his strong hands viciously wrapped like claws around her arms. He leaned down, now out of game face, and hissed into her ear, "Bitches, you're all bitches.  Think you can torment me, drive me crazy.  Haunt and jerk me around in my dreams.  Well, pet, I'm not yours or any other slayer's trick vamp.  That Chinese bint thinks she pulled one over on me.  Well, when you see her, tell her I'd drink from her again if given the chance."  His eyes were bulging with rage.   

She kicked him off and rolled to her side, coming to her feet, stake ready.  "You're one crazy out-of-your-mind vampire."  She edged towards him.  "I wouldn't worry about having any more dreams,if I were you."  Nikki had the perfect opening to strike and moved in.  Something in her pulled at her for a second, like a slight breeze whispering to her.  She had feelings about him that she had never felt before, like he was someone she knew, a vampire set apart from others.  

Spike kicked her as hard as he could and watched her fly across the passenger seats, taking his time as he closed in on her.  His eyes glinted with yellow, and his tongue flicked in and out of his mouth like a wild animal savoring the seconds before a kill.  "Thought you could trick me, did you?  Seduce me with your magics.  You almost had me in your thrall, bitch.  But I get it now.  And I'm not playing.  I kill slayers, not fuck them."

He was almost upon her, waves of bloodlust rolling through the air, his hatred cutting into her as he ranted, his words like razor blades.  

She knew this particular route and that they would be approaching a tunnel soon.  That might be her chance.  She backed up a few steps, then grabbed a pole in each hand and lifted herself so that she could kick him full force with both legs.  He flew backwards and she was on top of him before he could regain his stance.  She had him pinned on the floor as the train entered the tunnel, then without her grasping how, he was on top of her as they came out.  She looked into his face.  His eyes were wet with anguish and desperation, his face grim with determination.  She felt a strange peace, colored with a gift of momentary clear knowing as she heard the peculiar crunching sounds her vertebrae made as Spike broke her neck.

In a daze, Buffy had found herself standing in the training room drenched in sunlight, draped in Spike's coat.  

Buffy could still remember the rough strength of Spike's hands as he had claimed the coat of the dead slayer, and at the same time had slipped off her silver ring--all the while, his face riddled with emotion.  

_"Sorry, love," he said softly as he gazed down at Nikki,  "But, you know--slayer, vampire.  It's the way of things.  No offense if I don't drink from you, pet.  Slayer blood doesn't agree with me."  He stood up and pulled the emergency cable.  "Now be a good girl and stay out of my bloody dreams." _

Buffy was curled up deep inside the blackness of the heavy coat, her breath warm.  With a soft groan she emerged out from under her covering, feeling the crypt's cold air brush against her face as she let her head flop down on the back of the chair, gazing once more at the ceiling as she listened to the quiet pattering of rain as her thoughts struggled towards an understanding.  

She had witnessed an important event unfold that was far away yet immediately within her and had been aware that she was going to experience another slayer's death at the hands of Spike. Yet she had felt detached and calm.  It was as if her emotions had been left behind, like she had been thrown into Nikki's world for the sole purpose of observing.  What was she looking for, any one thing?  Or was the teaching revealed in the totality of the pieces?  Or maybe the whole vision thing just a bizarre fluke brought on by some latent psychic sensitivity on her part?  

Was there an invisible pattern of fated encounters at play, some primal force in its wisdom stringing these strange beads of karma together?  Or was it all just the play of random events?  And how did Spike come to find his way to her backyard?  Well, front yard really.

_"He has not been forgotten, nor lost.  His name has been carved into the heart of beginnings, and has been called."_

_._

Well, how very special.   

Needless to say, after the vision of Nikki's death, another call to Giles had followed.  

Giles had gone over his notes about a "calling spell."  He was convinced that the Chinese Slayer had followed the ancient practice, now forgotten, of casting such a spell.  By drinking her blood, Spike had ingested ingredients that had the power to alter him biologically and mystically in such a way as to create a unique kinship with slayers, attracting him to them. If the Chinese slayer's spell found its mark, he would forever be bound to a slayer, pulled by the force of a yearning so strong as to either wrench his heart open, putting him into her service, or, if the spell fell short, he would be drawn into close enough proximity as to increase his odds of being staked.  

The strange thing is that the spell had a reverse effect as well.  Slayers would feel a connection to him and a compelling sense of recognition.  In the time and place of the Chinese slayer, the spell was known and slayers would recognize him as "marked."  They would have tried to rope him in a little closer with additional rituals.  But Spike had left that part of the world where the spell was known and the net cast had remained dangerously loose.  ****

As a result, Nikki hadn't been prepared for the intensity of the energy and attraction she felt towards him.  It had caused her to be confused and to doubt her senses, leaving her vulnerable.  Spike played with her, at first not seeming to care about killing her.  He, in fact, had seemed more interested in seducing her.  

_"The first was all about business, but the second, she had a touch of your style--cunning, resourceful, oh, did I mention?  Hot.  I could have danced all night with that one."_

But then something happened between the first encounter and the next.  All flirtation and play were gone and replaced with a fierce, almost desperate need to kill her.  

Buffy remembered the desperation she felt in Spike the night he tried to rape her.  It was as if he couldn't stand the confusion and frustration any longer and he would rape her if it would release her love for him, or free him of his for her.  It felt similar to the energy she picked up from him when he killed Nikki.  Which was very different from his description of their battle to her at the Bronze.  He had spoken as if he had reveled in the heat of their fight.  But now she knew the truth.  He had killed Nikki in a rage, raw with desperation. 

Blushes of violet bruises were forming beneath his pale white skin, while the blue of his eyes laughed and played with her, his anger finding release in the familiar dance they were doing.  "I wasn't planning on hurting you--much." he said with a smirk. 

Her jaw jerked from the impact of his fist.  He was holding back, toying with her. She sneered at him, "You haven't even come close to hurting me."  His eyes crackled, daring her to come closer, closer to that beautiful mouth seductively ripping apart her denials, tearing away at her efforts to not want him. 

"Afraid to give me the chance?  You afraid I'm gonna…" 

And her mouth lunged at his.  He growled into her as he kissed her the way he hit her, hard-but not too hard.  She threw him across the room.  It was too late.   Pushing him roughly against the wall, she lifted herself on to him waist-high, the strength of his arms holding her weight, while their mouths and hands tore at each other, ripping clothes out of the way. She took him into her as deeply as she could, and defiantly looked into the hot surprise of his eyes.     

The hunger crashed through her and she was lost to it. 

A flood of craving need pulsed through her every cell.  Her fingers and mouth were all over him, pulling at him with a desperation that blackened her mind.  His mouth was on hers, swallowing her moans, taking her in, letting her devour him, meeting her every thirst and hunger. "I'm yours, all of me, yours, love," he whispered.

The following morning when she awoke, she became sick to her stomach, nausea spinning up into her head, blurring her eyesight. _What had she done?_  Spike looked like the cat that had swallowed the canary, an obnoxious smirk across his face, his nude body casually spread out before her like God's gift to slayers.  

_"You're gonna crave me, like I crave blood."_

And she had. She had craved him like a drug.  He had the power to bring her to life, to make the dullness burst open, to release her to fly up out of dark watery depths into the sun.

But getting the slayer buzz humming again was not without its cost.  Her spirit had become twisted like a string of dirty laundry knocking about in the wind. 

_He stood leaning against the wall, a sad fatigue washing over him as he spoke with an edge to his voice, "So, you've come for a bit of cold comfort?  The bed's a bit blown up, but then, that was never our… "  He stopped.  "So this is worse, then, is it, this is you telling me…"_

Buffy stretched out in the chair, straightening her legs and letting her arms flop over the sides.  She let out a deep sigh.  The candles had burned out and the soft light of dawn was filtering in through the windows.   A long night.  She stood up and neatly draped the leather coat over the back of the green chair.  Reaching behind her neck, Buffy undid the clasp of her necklace and removed the jade charm.  She held it in the palm of her hand a minute and then gently dropped it into an exposed pocket of the duster.

Picking up her backpack, she took a look around the crypt as if trying to figure out something before she left.  Something unsaid, unseen, unfelt.  There was a missing puzzle piece here, and she would find it--another night.  

As she headed out the door, for a secondshethought that she heard his voice.  

"So this is worse, then, is it, this is you telling me…" 

She walked out the door and turned, looking into the still crypt, now partially lit by the gentle light of dawn.  She could hear the echo of her words:

_"It's over…it's killing me...I'm sorry, William."_

Buffy dragged the heavy door shut and replaced the padlock.  She headed home, thinking about Spike.  

Okay, she could accept that she had a primal attraction towards him as a slayer to a vampire, and perhaps an even deeper connection rooted in the spell cast by Shan-Ling.  Was that all there was?  Was it just the effects of the spell that had caused her to believe that she harbored a primal and timeless love for him?  What of his love for her?  Was that just the spell calling him to her, the Slayer, making him think he loved her?  Could she and Spike have been _that_ manipulated? No more than puppets serving some ancient force?    

There had to be more here, more than this.  

It was a chilly morning, overcast with thick gray clouds.  Birds were beginning their calls and songs.  She walked quickly through tall, dew-laden grass, tears running down her face.  At this moment being a slayer felt more like a curse than a sacred calling.  Her feelings and desires perhaps not her own, but taking shape out of slayer karma and biology.  If she and Spike had been caught in a web of cosmic manipulation, how could she possibly sort out who she really was and what she felt?  And if the chemistry between her and Spike had been put into place by a slayer's spell, what power would it take to break it?  

And, hey, most importantly, what the hell did the damned Chinese slayer think she was going to get from Spike?  A sex slave for future slayers?  Not likely.  Well, alright, maybe not _totally_ unlikely, but what kind of sick motivation was that?

Buffy unlocked her front door and went into the quiet house, quickly going up the stairs and into her bedroom.  She'd sleep an hour or so, then get up with Dawn, have some coffee and begin another day of abnormal normality.  She took off her backpackand began to undress.  As she removed her sweater she stopped for a moment, pressing it against her face.  It carried the smell of the coat, of Spike.  She had spent the night recalling their violent and complex intimacy, reliving his murder of slayers, and breathing in the solid comfort she still felt in his crypt. 

All the places within her where he had been were but fluttering echoes of memory.  An ache at the base of her being burned colder, hungrier and angrier than she would have thought possible. 

He had been her murderer, her enemy, her warrior, her confidant, her lover. 

Who would he be when he returned?  Who did she want him to be?

And, hey, just a little skeptical here, but what kind of name for a witch is Ralph?

 


	4. Retribution

********

DARK TIDES 
    
    by Saj

Chapter 4 **Retribution**

The mirror is made of stone and the stone now is shadow,

there are two eyes the color of anger,

a ring of cold, a belt of blood,

there is a wind that scatters the reflections

of Alice, dismembered in the pond.

_Central Park_

Octavio Paz

_Bugger, why couldn't he just say no?_

The deadness of his body was cold and complete as if he were encased in ice, unable to move, melting into the earth.  All awareness of his extremities was fading, his arms and legs disappearing, dissolving, no longer extending from his will.  Only his mind and emotions were seemingly intact, and they were on a path of their own.   

A part of him watched, detached, with keen attention as memories surfaced, only to disappear into soft fragments, like shavings of faded photos. Panic, grief, joy, love, greed, lust—the whole bloody emotional bag—swirled through him.  

Reminded him of the 60's at Haight Ashbury.  He and Dru had spent several memorable months on a continuous high thanks to the passions of idealistic children. The whole lot of them in search of mystical poetic voices.  And Dru had obliged, seducing them with her quirky dance of prophetic words.  No lack of tender morsels there, and the taking had required no finesse whatsoever.  "Oi, Spike.  The Fool's drowning in cherry Kool Aid, he is, and they're all following him for the black sweetness of it."    

A recollection began to form of Dru laughing, dancing semi-nude at People's Park, motioning for him to join her, when a methodic drumbeat pulled him back into the morphing present, making him think for a moment that he had a heartbeat again, a soft rhythmic thud batting lightly against his chest like a trapped bird.  It was an oddly comforting feeling, reeling him into a soft, fleshy darkness.  An unexpected chanting of female voices suddenly rippled around him in a soft embrace, causing him more puzzlement.  He tried to cock his head in order to study the phenomena more closely, but it was lost, swallowed by the ether and floating away, released from the tether of his thoughts.

A sharp realization pierced through the shifting and swirling of his senses**.  _I have my bloody soul back.  Holy hell. _ The thought immediately twisted into a question.  _Why? _ **

_Her lips, rough and biting, finding every soft spot on him.  Groaning, leaning into her hunger.  His hands searching each part of her for the place where she hid her love for him._

He had found where she hid her passion, where she stashed her hesitations, but her love was not forthcoming.  When he was hard inside her, that was the closest.  She would wind herself around him as if to never release him, sometimes crying like a child against his shoulder as she came.  In those moments his heart would open like a rose bud and he'd pull her to him, whispering, "I've got you, love".  Then it would pass, that place of raw need, and she was gone.  He could watch the iron railings drop, see himself in the mirror of her eyes as he became what she most feared. 

From slayer in heat, to frightened child, to a woman terrified of the darkness.  She played it all out on him.  And he would've let her forever.

**Having a soul will not make her love you, vampire.  You cannot manipulate a Slayer's love.**

He opened his eyes to locate the source of the voice.  There was nothing.  All seeing was internal.  The external, non-existent.  He closed his eyes against the bleak nothingness and tried to speak, but his cold lips were frozen in time and all desperate sounds were trapped in silence. 

His mind drifted back to thoughts of Buffy, remembering the times he had been inside her, how she had melted open, taking him in, deeper, deeper.  A small fire of love had smoldered for him there, as certain as her need for him to fill her completely.   

As they had stood across from each other under the glare of the white tiles that final, terrible night, he had hardly been able to look at her while she closed off all access to him with an iron armor of impatient determination.  The horrifying icy emptiness crawling through him had quickly turned into a white hot rage.  He had begun to think in circles, all leading back to one thing:  he had to make her feel _it again.  _

_With a quick flashing of filtered light taking him across time, he was on top of her, pushing her down against the bathroom tiles, feeling a desperation as urgent and terrifying as death.  _

_He ripped her light robe away from her breasts and off her hips, forcing his leg between her thighs.  He would take her right here, shove it into her, fuck her till she's begging him not to stop, till she's moaning her love for him, her need. He'd teach the bitch to play with him.  She couldn't just walk away, tossing over her shoulder, "I don't love you**."  He pinned her wrists down while reaching to undo his pants, his erection hard and ready.  He'd slam it in, pound her into the floor, till she feels…**_

**You tried killing her, making love to her, raping her, and now, poor lovesick vampire, you are going to try soul enticement? Have you forgotten what a soul is?**

Before he could make another effort to speak, just to say something like, _fuck off, bitch, he was overcome with a bittersweet golden red pain._

A river of molten agony poured into him.  _My god, bloody hell. The pain of the whole sodding world was letting down anchor in the middle of his chest.  __Big mistake, this was. The wailing and deadening of countless broken hearts and spirits spiraled through him, disembodied grief and rage piercing him like spears of lightning. Hate of all kinds played through him.  The hot kind that maims, kills and rapes in moments of unleashed passion.  The cold kind that gets off on slow methodic tortures.  The other kind that turns in on itself, tearing souls apart with self-loathing.  All of it bleeding into him, saturating every pore.  Suffering was endless and eternal, and it was taking up residence, right here, in his lifeless heart.  _

**A souless demon is…well…you know.  Human beings are messy little things--fearful and passionate, quite capable of horrible cruelty. **

Cecily stood  before him, her mouth curling in a quiver of revulsion.  "You're beneath me, William."  

First, his heart broke with a relentless shattering pain, and he yearned to disappear, to dissolve into nonexistence, anything to escape the burning shame that was devouring him.  Then the rage took over, boiling up from a churning river of humiliation. He began running through the streets and alleys, his vision a tearful blur, wishing upon her a brutal, slow death. 

Dru appeared, calling him to her.  Looking into his volcanic eyes, she asked him if he wanted _it. "Yes, God yes."  Without hesitation, he had surrendered his soul in exchange for the power of retribution.  _

How many throats had he sliced, slayers had he killed, all the time doing Cecily in over and over?  Her rejection of his love had released a rage that spent itself in a rampant killing spree that lasted for over a century.  Becoming a vampire was not what had made him so brilliantly cruel.  Dru had only opened the valve, releasing his bitter hate on to the world.  He had been burying angers and resentments under carefully controlled behaviors for years.  Layer upon layer, hurt over hurt. The entering demon reveled in a readymade ripeness and thirst for gruesome killing.

Spike watched as his rage performed innumerable acts of brutality.  His desire for power and recognition was driven by the humiliation and shame of William. 

The sun shone warmly on his skin.  Flickering shadows played around them, as the sunlight caressed the trees.  He was feeling cocky, liberated, ready.  They circled each other, eyes locked, each moving in counter step to the other.  The energy between them was charged, hot with the possibility of finality.  And this one, this tricky bitch—she'd made a fool of him for the last time.  He wasn't going to take her down quickly--no, a little whittling away first.  The kind Angelus had made into an art form.  
    
    _"So, you let Parker take a poke, eh? Didn't seem like you knew each other that well. What did it take to pry apart the Slayer's dimpled knees?"__ Kicking her head on, she tumbled backwards. "Did he play the sensitive lad and get you to seduce him? That's a good trick if the girl's thick enough to buy it." He hit her with the full force of his strength.  "I wonder what went wrong. Were you too strong? Did you bruise the boy? Come to think of it, seems like someone told me that. Who was it? Oh, yeah. Angel."_

Spike cringed as he recalled the pleasure he had taken in the wounded look that had come over Buffy's face.  Course, she had quick got pissed and had him by the balls again.    He and the Slayer had been good at that, cutting each other to the quick with words.  Sometimes, it seemed the more he had loved her, the more he had cut into her, zeroing in with calculated barbs. It wasn't the demon in him who had verbally stripped and humiliated her that sunny day, or who had tried to rape her.  It was the human in him.   Whiny, powerless, lovesick, rageful William. 

He could forgive the cruelty of the monster in him, after all that's the nature of being a demon and all.  But it wasn't always clear where William left off and the demon began.  He knew, could see with certainty, the hunger he had to hurt others the way he had been hurt.  Demons aren't particularly sensitive that way, or very adept at taunting—that's more of a human thing.   And William was one literate and pissed off nitwit.

Vampires, as a rule, didn't care much how they killed, as long as it was bloody and thrilling. It was William who sought out the railroad spikes, who wanted a tool as poetically just as it was lethal.

**Do you believe in retribution, vampire?  What do you think a fair compensation for the acts of one such as yourself?**

With each syllable softly and succinctly spoken, a piercing agony spun through him.  His muscular, taut body was stretched against rough bark within a field littered with screaming splayed beings.  His white blood-stained form pulled against itself in unbearable pain as the force of gravity and karma tore at him. One after another, place after place, railroad spikes pierced him, each hit coming closer and closer to his heart, and then through the center.  Flames burst from his chest, threatening to consume him until only his heart remained burning, turning black with fiery embers, like a coal lit from inside.  Time ceased with only searing pain marking the seconds.

His mouth was wide open, everything in him straining to scream, when he heard a soft familiar voice. "Gaosu wo ma, wo hen bao chien."  In that moment he understood Chinese as if he was born to it.  "Tell my mother I am sorry."**  The torturous agony began to dissolve, his pinned bleeding palms were now free and buried within soft black hair, twisting dark handfuls, pulling her head back as his fangs sliced into her neck, her young face yielding with acceptance.  Her glistening lips whispered, "Ni shr wo de," as she stared into his eyes.  Her blood pooled in his mouth, his gut, and surged through his veins carrying her life, into his.  Images of an older Chinese woman watching the door for her daughter, a young girl laughing, emotions of deep love and joy, and bottomless grief flashed through him in the space of a heartbeat, merging with his own feelings of demonic satisfaction.  A strange power ran through him that was completely new and different, draining as much strength as it gave. Sorrow washed through the river of mysterious energy, a quiet wailing rose like steam from the flow of her blood. Spike snapped her neck in an act of defiant awe and terror.**

His senses were aquiver with an awareness that something strange and unworldly was happening to him.  A power foreign to his nature was inhabiting him, changing what he was in a way he couldn't grasp. His heart ached, swelling with a bitter pain and an insistent pressure, such that he could hardly stand.  A knowing without words and beyond understanding ate through him:  he was caught in a trap, bound to this slayer for as long as his vampiric life continued. The horror and truth of it made him gasp with nausea. 

**Did you think taking a Slayer's life and blood was without consequence?  There are different kinds of payback. Yours began the day you tasted of Sang-Ling.**

_Well, isn't this lovely.  A life review, with a touch of irony and torture._  _Bugger_.  Spike tried again to move his body, to find his ground.  It was like trying to manipulate thin air.

There had been the dreams.  Almost 100 years of bloody tormenting dreams. The first was a month to the day after he killed the Chinese slayer.  

It was dawn and the sky was flushed with a purplish haze.  The call of a nightingale fell upon the morning air, floating through the temple where he held her to him with a gentle passion, his fangs embedded in her neck, drinking, savoring the feel of her warm body yielding into his and the exquisite taste of slayer blood.  As he drank, a gathering of whispers and low wailing began to rise up from the earth below their feet.  The deepest possible sadness and yearning welled up within his heart.  He longed for a wholeness he could not name.  As he looked into her dark eyes, she murmured, "Ni shr wo de.  You belong to me."  Unexplainable tears fell down his face.  Out of anguish and habit, he broke her neck, and she fell at his feet.  

The dreams had recurred regularly, and were especially vivid at the time of year he had killed her.  In each, she would come to him making both an offer and a claim, whispering, "Ni shr wo de," and he would kill her. Again and again.  And each time he was overcome with a hideous grief, weeping like a motherless child.  

At first, Dru had tried to comfort him.  But she soon had taken to sleeping elsewhere, leaving him a prisoner of his nightmares.  The dreams had frightened and repelled her.  He had told her that they were about him losing her, or having to claw his way out of his grave again, or something that would make his moaning and sobbing seem less strange.  But she had seen through his lies.  The truth of his dreams had played out before her like a tarot spread.

"The Chinese Slayer has torn out your heart, Spike; she holds it, and is waiting for you.  There is no where for you to go but to her."  

Then there had been Nikki, 77 years after he had killed the Chinese slayer.  She had been standing against a graffiti covered concrete wall, almost in the shadows, watching him.  He had felt her presence before their eyes met.  Dru had spotted her an instant after that.  

"Spike,"Dru had whispered, "you mustn't.  The last one left a curse on you, as surely as the burning baby fish that like to swim around your head."  She had tugged at him to leave.

Ah, Dru.  They were a pair.  She had been dressed in an ankle length, modest Victorian lace bit and he had perfected his punk look, complete with spiked leather accessories.  He hadn't told her about the recent dreams, where a shadow slayer had begun appearing behind the Chinese one.  But then, he had led her to believe that the dreams had stopped.  Of course, you couldn't really fool Dru.

As they had stood there, he had felt the slayer's energy pulsing through him, pulling at him.  He hadn't been sure if he wanted to kill her or fuck her, or both.  He usually experienced a certain amount of arousal when approaching a fight, but this had been different.  He had felt a yearning to ease in closer, to touch his lips to her hair, along with a furious desire to beat her to death, to bludgeon those fucking dreams out of existence.  

Dru had pulled at him again.  "Spike, not this one.  She's wearing the coat of the Queen of Hearts, and there's a trap in it.  Come on Spike, let her go_."_

The slayer's eyes had bored through him as if connecting to his nervous system, one nerve at a time.  His entire body had buzzed with arousal, longing, and rage. Then he had gently taken Dru's arm and disappeared with her into the crowd.  

She had followed him, and found her way into his dreams that afternoon.  

_She stood before him naked, wearing only the leather duster.  A wind was lifting the coat away from her body like angelic black wings. She stepped closer, her dark eyes solemn and piercingly clear.  Her body, black and sinewy.  Her nipples were an earthy rose color and erect.  Her left bud was pierced with a small gold hoop, suspended delicately in space.  He stepped into the path of the soft wind, feeling the warmth of it brush against his cool skin.  He wore jeans, hanging loose from his hips.  His chest was bare, his shoeless feet quiet against the ground.  He moved towards her, his right hand reaching tentatively to touch her breast.  The heat between them seemed to cause ripples in the air, creating a shimmering mirage quality to her form.  "You are the marked one.  You belong to me," she said as a stake appeared in her right hand.  They kept moving towards each other. "I will smear the red dust of your heart across my breast and mourn you like a mad woman."  He felt his cock pushing against the worn denim, hard and full. "Not likely, love.  But, you know, it's the thought that counts."  He tenderly touched the pierced nipple.  Their bodies hungrily stepped into each other.  As their lips touched and explored, his fingers entwined into her hair and twisted until he felt her neck surrender to his strength. She fell near his feet, the last of her warm breath floating over his skin.  Blood smearing his fingers, he pulled her stake out of his chest with a sharp gasp of pain.  He dropped next to her, taking her dark corpse into his arms, kissing her face while weeping with unbearable sorrow--the black leather coat swirling around them like a shroud.  _

When he had awakened, he had been filled with the intensity of the dream.  The confusion had quickly congealed into a determined fury.  _One more slayer to whimper at him in his dreams.  Bitches.  Let them haunt him, tease him, pull his heart out and play with it.  He'd still kill'em._

After he had done Nikki in, the dreams had continued, only now it was two slayers tormenting him.  The Chinese slayer would come to him sometimes as herself, and sometimes as Nikki.  Or the both of them would be there--tender, fierce, and shining—saying that he belonged to them.  "Ni shr wo de, You are mine."  And he would break their necks, weep and wake up pissed.  

In recent years it was Buffy.  Sometimes she was the Chinese Slayer, sometimes Nikki, sometimes herself.  He always killed her.  Then he would beg her to forgive him, offer his life for hers, as if that would bring her back. He would weep and feel as forlorn and hollow as if he had lost his soul, as if he had had one.  

One of the things Dru had said when they were last together was,  "Spike, your soul, it's floating around you, like a purple net of dragonfly wings.  It drifts upon your aura mocking you, you and the Slayer.  Oi, Spike, this can't be good."

Then the dreams had stopped.  It was right after he had almost had his teeth in the Slayer's neck, preparing to revel in the taste of victory, when the goddamed chip kicked in.  He had ended up running off like a whipped pup.  He had felt a sense of defeat so bleak and hollow that he could hardly move.  Harmony had tried to cheer him up with a blow job, but he was so depressed he had hardly known or cared what his cock was up to.  He had despondently fallen into bed to have the dream that changed him forever.  

She was there, knocking the door open with her usual grace, her hair shining and wild, wearing a t-shirt that clung to her soft breasts, walking towards him, a stake in her hand.  She fiercely looked into his eyes, "Spike, you're a killer.  And I shoulda done this years ago."  He couldn't take his eyes off of her.  A feeling of absolute resignation and fatigue came over him, quickly followed by angry disgust.  "You know what?  Do it.  Bloody, just do it.  End. My. Torment.  Seeing you, every day, everywhere I go, every time I turn around.  Take me. Out of a world. That has you in it."  In a flurry of frustration he ripped off his shirt, presenting his bare chest to her.  "Just kill me."  Buffy moved to bring the stake down and through his heart, but stopped just as it touched his skin.  He stared into her eyes and then grabbed her by her arms, pulling her to him and kissed her passionately.  Her mouth surrendered to his, and then she stood back, shocked, for a moment, before stepping to him and grabbing his head, pulling him down to her, kissing him hungrily.  He could feel the heat and desire pulsing through her.  "Spike, I want you."  He desperately held her to him, kissing her neck, "Buffy, I love you."  Suddenly, he understood.  He held her away from him and really looked at her, into her.  "God, I love you so much."

After getting over the surprise and horror of it all, it had come to him.  What he had been yearning for--the wholeness that had been calling to him.  It was _her_.  The Slayer.  He _did_ belong to her.  All of him, heart and, well, soul, if he had one.  Where it wasn't, was hers.  All the spaces and all the pieces of him, hers.

Groaning, Spike tried to make a fist.  Nothing.  _Bloody hell_.  How long is the fucking disembodied witch going to drag him through memory lane?  What happened to the little hag that said he needed to find his innocence?  That was a definite mislead.  He'd take those crunchy bugs crawling up his ass any day over this.

**Could be worse, William.  You could be made to suffer through a recitation of your poetry...Sorry, one of those tasteless Goddess jokes.  And we know how sensitive you are.**

_Crying, sobbing, his little face wet and slippery with snot.  His shoulders shaking and bent.  The pain in his chest flashing, his breath caught in between sobs.  His head churning with confusion and rage.  Lying across his fathers knees, his bottom stinging from the slaps of the leather belt.  "How many times William, how many times?  This is the last, I say**."  Another slash of pain across his bare butt.  He is trying not to scream or cry, to be strong like his father wants, but the anguish bursts forth in tiny howls.  "No more reports of you daydreaming in class, do you hear me?  No more writing girly stuff, do you hear?" Another hard swipe of the belt.**_

But what was he to do with the feelings that came over him?  When the beauty of the pinkish orange sky bathed the Thames, what was he to do?  He could only express the indescribable in silly poems, dancing words.  So he did.  He hid them in secret places, and pulled them out to read by candlelight when he needed the comfort of them.  They were like little psalms, reminding him of the light and lushness of the world, and of his heart.  

He loved his mum.  He would bravely leave her a love poem now and then, in a place where he prayed only she would find it.  She would smile at him--sometimes her eyes were all moist, looking soft and sparkly.  Spike wondered where his mother hid them, where her secret place was.

He had been small in size, somewhat frail.  His heart seemed to always be fluttering in the breeze, catching the songs of birds and the howls of beaten dogs.  The loveliness and brutality of God's world seemed caught within his heart, making it feel like it would burst.  Then he would write.  The words would fly out like little birds, landing in surprising ways, releasing the pressure of watery longings.  

When he was older, he had become more brazen.  Poetry, after all, was taught in college.  His greatest ambition was to be a poet.  He found himself writing whenever he could, sometimes ignoring his studies.  Then he saw Cecily.  That was the end of him.  Literally.  The poetry was like a river undamned, flowing up from his heart incessantly.  And he became careless.  So caught up was he in the passion of trying to express his love for her, he forgot the cruelty of God's creatures.
    
    _"Have you heard? They call him William the Bloody because of his bloody awful poetry!"_
    
    _" It suits him. I'd rather have a railroad spike through my head than listen to that awful stuff!"_

Spike smiled to himself.  Well, they got that right.  Careful what you wish for, you idiots.  He took a few minutes to recall and savor the dull crunching sound and shrill screams of agony as a blunt railroad stake had made it's way through one git's forehead, and then the other's.  Wankers.  Guess it takes awhile to feel remorse about some things.

Then he saw himself, as he foolishly extended his heart to Cecily.  Such sincerity, hope, and blindness.   
    
    _"They're about how I feel... please, if they're no good, they're only words but... the feeling behind them... I love you, Cecily.  I know I'm a bad poet but I'm a good man and all I ask is that... that you try to see me-"_
    
    Tears burned behind his eyes.  It still hurt.  Effulgent.  It all turned on that word.  Shining, radiant, brilliant.  That was the world he had wanted, what he wanted to be.  He had wanted his love to be a shining thing.  
    
    His love for Druscilla had had its radiance. She had been a poem dancing in a dream, a child with the sight for more than God ever meant a human, or vampire, to know.  They had clung to each other with childlike need and faith.  Dru had immediately known him--his violated innocence and shunned poetic nature, a reflection of her own.  She had loved the poet in him almost as much as she loved the killer.
    
    _Driscila stood close to him, pointing to his heart and head,  "Your wealth lies here...and here. In the spirit and... imagination. You walk in worlds the others can't begin to imagine."  Gently opening the starched white collar of his shirt, she said, "I see what you want. Something glowing and glistening. Something... effulgent. Do you want it?"_
    
    That's all he had ever wanted.
    
    Spike began to drift off into nothingness, as a sadness welled up around the innocence lost deep inside of him.  The place where his poems lay crumpled and thrown away, the dark corner where William's soul slept, taking root.

**_Sleep, poet.  Fields of burning nights and misty days lay before you.  A dark journey has ended.  The sun will rise within you, casting shadows to mark your path._**

_Right.  What a bunch of mystical crap.  Talk about bad poetry.  I'm the fuck out of here as soon as I can find the rest of my body.  Bloody hell._

Then a dark quiet came over him, sweeping him into a field of nothingness.

Spike glared at her as he drank the cup of blood she had brought him.  _Trust me, poet._  Right.  Deceiving old bat.  He sat on the bedroll, his shirt off, fingering a new scar in the shape of a crescent over his heart, rose colored, as if it had been delicately knit out of his parched skin.

Ralph sat across from him, cross-legged, silent, every now and then letting out a sigh.  She had a brilliant shiner spread across her right cheek bone and eye.  It was a lovely mix of turquoise and lime green that coordinated nicely with the tropical coloring of Dracula, who sat on her bare shoulder, head plopped forward, snoring.

The witch searched around in her pockets, mumbling to herself.  Leaning forward, she quietly asked, "Care for a fag?" as she offered him a cigarette across the tense space between them.

He continued to glare at her, turning it up a few hundred volts, and took the cigarette.  As he put it to his mouth, she held a candle in front of him to light it.   He glanced up at her through his thick dark lashes while she lit his cig.  Taking a long drag, he leaned back against the wall and blew smoke up towards the ceiling, his angry eyes following the trail it made.  

Drac sputtered a little cough as a string of smoke passed his way.  

"You're not shaking," she said in a matter-of-fact tone of voice.

True enough.  Since he had regained consciousness an hour or so ago, not a twitter or twitch.  He continued to look at her with a cold stare, not saying anything.

Ralph leaned back on her hands, released another sigh, and said, "I did all I could to prepare you.  It wasn't just to ease your shakes that I had been working on you every chance I got.  I was pouring into you the strength you would need to face Her. And yourself."  Ralph stood up abruptly, losing Drac in the upswing.  The parrot landed in a heap between them, too shocked to squawk.  She spoke with a note of impatience in her voice, "You don't need to act as if you've been drawn and quartered.  The drugs and spell should be about worn off. In fact, the way you're spitting bullets at me with your looks, I'd guess you're feeling pretty much yourself as it is."  She turned her back to him and walked out of the hut.

He transferred his angry stare onto the fat bird that was standing in front of him, blinking like a little butler waiting to take his order.  "What are you gaping at?"  Spike snarled and began leaning in closer, slightly shifting into game face, while Drac slowly kept backing up, hissing with each inch surrendered.  Spike reached to grab the obnoxious bag of feathers by its neck, but Drac was just a tad quicker and viciously bit down on his hand, not letting go, holding on with the grip of a pit bull, his beady little eyes sparkling red with gleeful satisfaction.

A blood curdling screech came from inside the hut, echoing as far as the village.  When the witch came running in she saw Spike holding his right hand, blood pouring down his arm.  He gritted his teeth and rolled his eyes, yelling, "Holy Christ, you bloodthirsty little bugger!"   The next thing he felt was a solid punch across his left jaw as Ralph let loose with a powerful right hook, knocking him across the room.

Shocked, he looked up from the floor at her, "Bloody hell, Ralph, what was that for?"

Her face was contorted in rage, crimson and fluorescent orange sparks flickering all around her.  "You evil creature!  Even with a soul you remain a monster!  Not even my power is a match for the darkness in your heart."  She moved in to hit him again when she saw Drac tucked away in a corner looking no worse for wear, basking in a definite glow of smugness.  She dashed to him, scooping the fat slug into her arms.  "Oh, precious, what did he do to you? "  She began inspecting him closely, while Drac practically purred, glancing over at Spike through hooded lids.

"I didn't do nothing to him.  Not that I didn't give it some thought, mind you.  It's him that has the itch for violence.  He tore a chunk of flesh outta my hand!"

She looked over at Spike, a frown on her weathered face, "He does have a weakness for raw meat and a little blood now and then."  Her face transformed into a scowl as she glowered at him.  "But I'd be willing to bet that his little nibble wasn't unprovoked."  

Spike had wrapped a cloth around his hand and was tugging on his t-shirt.  As he pulled the black cotton over his head, he said, "Okay, Ralph, let's call a truce, shall we?"  He tucked the ends of the shirt into his jeans and began gathering together the few things he had—cigs, lighter, silver flask, wallet, fake passport, comb, toothbrush—and tucked them in his pockets.  He thoughtfully fingered one last item for a second, a gold locket, before pushing it to the bottom of a side pocket.  

He then crossed his arms and turned to her.  His voice was as hard and clear as the mirror on the wall next to him when he said,  "So tell me, Ralph, what was the bit about _finding my innocence_?  Why didn't you let on that the little trip you had in mind was to hell and back with a goddess adept in the arts of torture as my guide?"  He let his arms fall to his sides and gazed at the flickering candlelight, his face softening before looking back at her, the blue of his eyes simmering.  "You didn't think I was experiencing enough torment on my own?"  He looked up and rolled his eyes, his hands clenching into fists.  He faced her squarely, stepping closer.  "Bloody hell, Ralph--what _was_ that?"  

She stood tall, an air of royalty in her posture, with Drac perched on her shoulder like a loyal servant, both of them looking into his blazing blue eyes with the stubborn blackness of their own.  Drac spoke first, taking on a British accent.  "Not a sodding tea party, that's for sure."  Ralph continued to look at Spike steadily, taking her time to answer.

"Well, aren't you the whiner.  I didn't say it would be easy.  This ritual is not done very often and it never unfolds in the same way.  I couldn't hand you a program to follow.  I trusted that you were made of the stuff that would survive it.  And you did, perfectly."  She looked him up and down.  "You returned in better shape than most.  The last vampire I did this on had a permanent limp and a tendency to cross his eyes involuntarily for years.  Yet, did he complain?  No.  He knew to be grateful."  She was really brewing now, her hair standing on end and glowing as if lit from behind.

"What?  I could've come out of it worse off than I was?"  He had stepped closer to her, looking down at her, so angry that slight ridges were starting to take shape on his forehead.

Ralph held her ground and looked Spike in the eye.  "I didn't say that.  You wouldn't have come back worse.  What's a little limp compared to a century of torment and possible insanity?  This wasn't an easy trick, you know.  Very few witches can pull it off.  A little gratitude would be in order."

She started to walk away, but Spike grabbed her by her arm.  He felt a burning pain travel through his hand and up his arm as if he were on fire, but he kept his hold.  Ralph looked up at him quizzically, increasing the energy into the hand wrapped around her bicep.  Spike's fingers shook and a grimace came over his face, but he didn't let go.  Continuing to look at her, he said through his teeth, "Last time I'm asking, love.  What did you do?"  He strengthened his grip on her arm to the point that he would have broken a bone if he applied any more pressure.

She smiled and relaxed, releasing the electric pain she had been sending through him.  She glanced down at where he was holding her arm and back up at him.  Spike slowly let go of her and stood back, waiting.

Ralph rubbed her arm gently while she looked at him, amused.  She began to talk, a softness to her voice.  "Basically, it was a ritual intended to bind your soul, to ground it within your nature and being.  Such a process of integration could take years on its own.  Maybe a hundred, or more.  A hundred years of torment and floundering.  I called upon Her, the source of our power and existence, to take on your pain and allow your soul to strengthen and grow."  She touched her eye and winced.  "You weren't thrilled with the drug induction phase.  If I ever attempt this again, I'll remember to use restraints."

He didn't recall hitting her.  Last thing he remembered was drinking the slayer's blood riddled with drugs.  "Guess I shoulda mentioned that I have a thing about slayers' blood.  Makes me want to barf and kill things."

Suddenly a cold terror ran through him.  He knew the blood wasn't Buffy's.  Could she have died, causing a new slayer to pop out near here?  No, Giles said the next slayer would come after Faith's death.  Nevertheless, he found himself trembling as he registered the possible meanings hidden in the cup of slayer blood he had drank.  

"Tell me this, witch.  And I want it straight.  Where did you get the blood of a slayer?"  He felt a low blaze of anxiety twisting through his gut.

She read him like a book.  "Your slayer is alive and well.  More than that, I can't say."

"You pompous old crow!  You drag me into your den, ply me with drugs, and torture me for hours, and that's all I get?  _You can't say_?"  Spike felt his hands shaking with rage and a desire to tear things apart, a feeling he hadn't had since Lurky graced him with his soul.  He felt … violent, dangerous, pissed.  And … it felt _good_.  

He lowered his head, a growl rumbling through his chest, and sneered at the witch as he closed in on her.  "I have a few questions, Ralph, and I want answers.  Starting with where the slayer blood came from.  Next, a little more explanation about the trip to hell and back.  That's a gentle-sounding term, "soul binding".  Wasn't so gentle, love.  And not like I made an informed choice to participate.  You could have said a bit more beforehand, like "Spike, this will feel like your guts are being torn out, like your heart is being chopped to pieces and set on fire, and you'll be in such anguish that you'll wish you were dust…..but, you know, it'll be good for you."

Her voice was as soft as a feather boa, and as seductive.  "Why are you so angry, my pet? You are a warrior.  You know there are no easy paths worth taking."  Then her tone became more challenging, not unlike that of a drill sergeant.   "Did you think I was handing you a nice little cup of magic that would kiss away the horrors of your existence?  Did you think I was giving you a bit of potion that would make your heart's fantasies come true?  Tell me, vampire, what did you think I was offering you?  A trip to Disneyland?"

The sharpness of her words stung like a thousand bees cleaning out any rationalized blame that had been spinning in his head.  The rage dissolved back into him like blood soaking into the earth.  His words became precise and gentle, "Don't know that I thought about it, love.  Just trusted you.  Somehow didn't think it could hurt any more than it was."  He looked down a minute, then back into her face, searchingly. 

Ralph closed her eyes.  When she opened them again they were sparkling black pools.  "I have not betrayed your trust.  I didn't lead you to believe I could or would end your pain.  To have a soul is to know the anguish of existence.  To be a vampire with a new soul is to experience horrific knowledge.  Even though at the moment it may not feel like it, you received a huge gift.  Your pain, though not gone, has been transformed.  Do you not feel it?" 

Spike thought about how he felt, pausing a minute to take inventory.  His body was grounded, alive, strong.  The tremors that had been persistently rooted just below the surface seemed to be gone.  But his chest was criss-crossed with shooting pain, his heart afire.  

"Pain is pain, love.  Didn't expect you to take it from me.  Know it's mine to bear.  Just wasn't prepared for…hell, I don't know.  It was a Mother of a drug trip, and I'm just a bit pissed.  Haven't gotten to the point of appreciating the afterglow."

The witch had moved to an old rocking chair in a dark corner of the room.  She spoke in a low voice bordering on a coarse whisper, "Did you not see and touch your innocence, Spike?"  

"And just _what_ would that be, love?" he answered quietly.  "You know what I am.  The only innocence I've seen in the last century has been in the eyes of those I've murdered."

The witch rocked back and forth, softly humming as she looked at him.  She began twisting a lock of her Brillo-textured fuzz around one of her long fingers, studying him.  Drac began chewing on strands of her hair as she said, "I know what you are."  She paused, resting her face on the palm of her hand as she continued to look at him.  "There were three of us on your strange journey.  You, Her, and…me."  She paused to make sure he understood.  "Your innocence called out to you like a lost child.  But maybe you were too busy feeling sorry for yourself to notice, or too involved in the pleasures and thrills of being a vampire to care.  Personally, I especially enjoyed Druscilla.  A deliciously evil and talented girl.  No wonder you loved her so.  No doubt part of the reason the slayer's spell took so long to grab hold."

A fearful nausea churned in his gut as he thought of her witnessing the gruesome intimacies of his existence.  He spoke to her in a low growl, "Ralph, I think I'm feeling violated here.  Jerked around a bit.  And I'm not liking it."

Ralph kept looking at him, and rocking.  "Poor Spike.  Have I hurt your feelings?  Well, sorry for that, but it's perhaps time to get to the point.  I am not your fairy godmother come to look after you.  I'm a creature older than you can imagine, so connected to the earth and stars that we exist in each other, so rooted in the forces of evil and light that death has no hold on this battered shell of a body.  I have watched you for a long time and waited even longer for the opportunity you now present."

He could feel her power crawling through him, letting him know she was inside his mind and could be whenever she chose.  _Rot, come for a soul, and end up with the Queen of Darkness slithering around inside looking for what she can use.  _And what would that be?  "I get your drift, pet.  But tell me, just what opportunity are you going on about?"

The leathery ancient creature stopped rocking and brought her gnarled, but amazingly strong hands to her lap.  "It would not be wise of me to lay it all out for you.  But a few tidbits might catch your attention.  You were called.  You were called because you are needed.  Shan-Ling, the Chinese slayer whose lovely neck you gorged yourself on, set the spell in motion.  When you drank her blood, you were changed.  I had about given up on the spell's ability to capture you, when the American military, bless their hearts, unexpectedly helped out a little.  Karma spins around in strange ways."  She stopped and laughed.

His muscles were quivering.  He felt as if he were watching an aberration of Ralph sitting in the chair, throwing out words dripping with his blood.  

Spike had begun slowly walking back and forth as the witch talked.  Something wasn't right here.  "Glad it worked out for you, Ralph.  But I'm still not getting it.  What was I "called" for?  What do you want from me?  And I'm a little confused here, so help me out, whose side are you on?"

"It's not a matter of sides.  It's a matter of balance.  I've been known to work both sides when it was needed.  As to why you were tagged, there is tremendous power available when the energies of a slayer and a vampire can be aligned.  And as you know, that is no easy task.  The mechanics of the spell worked to enhance the preexisting biological kinship between you, as a vampire, and the slayer.  Unfortunately, the spell is tricky and has had a success rate not worth bragging about."  Ralph shrugged, and laughed.  "But what's a slayer to do when she sees her death before her?  It is at least one last act of possibility.  And when it works, when the vampire accepts the calling, the whole world shakes a little."

As she spoke, Spike thought about his dreams of the slayers he had killed, of Buffy.  He watched as the pieces started to fit with what Ralph was saying.

The witch continued, "In your case, the spell sort of worked ass-backwards.  The chip provided just enough behavior modification for the spell to take hold, luring you into the Slayer's lair.  Your attraction to each other then manifested in displaced tension, resulting in a continual power struggle, undermining the momentum of the spell.  And then, just when I'm thinking the spell couldn't be working any worse, the two of you begin sullying your potential for synchronized power by boinking like crazed demons.  Anyway, the spell unwound itself all wrong, and I was about to give up in disgust and have you dusted, when, WHAM, BAM, you progressed beyond my wildest expectations.  Who would have thought you'd dash off after a soul?  I have to tell you, that's a first.  And, not only that, you came shopping for it in my neck of the woods.  Suddenly, there you were whining at my doorstep about wanting to be what the Slayer deserves.  Now tell me there isn't a God."  She rocked back in the chair and laughed, clapping her hands.  Drac moved his head in a complete circle, then said, "A vamp mooning over a slayer, makes my head spin."  He then moved down to the witch's lap and settled in to groom himself, while watching Spike out of the corner of his eye.

"I wasn't exactly at your doorstep, love.  As I recall, you had me dragged to your little palace of pleasures."  A lit cigarette hung from his fingers loosely as he stood casually in front of her.  "But, here I am, in the flesh.  And it's crossing my mind that I may not be as free and footloose as I had thought.  That possibility aside, I still want to know where the slayer blood came from."  

Spike noticed that her energy had withdrawn from poking around inside of him and that she seemed more like herself again.  Dangerous, powerful, perhaps even evil, but not the menacing apparition that snaked before him a bit ago.  He made a note to not forget that particular scary potential she had.

The witch closed her eyes and spoke.  "You, and only you, have the strength and devotion your slayer needs.  If you could just keep your mouth shut half the time, you could be of incredible help to her in the time to come.  There is an ancient and unimaginably destructive force building.  She will need you by her side.  But you are not ready.  That is why you need to stay and learn from us for a while longer."

He stopped and looked at her, his thumbs hooked into his jean pockets, leaning into his left hip.  "It's one question and you're not answering.  The blood, whose was it?"

"She opened her eyes and looked at him like he was a fool.  " I have answers to questions you haven't even thought of yet."

"I'm only asking one at the moment."

"Would you have it in you to trust me once more?"  Her voice wound through him, loosening forgotten hopes and intimacies, melting the sharp edges of discernment.

Spike tilted his head and narrowed his eyes, "I'm picking up on a touch of thrall weaving its way about the room, especially right here." And he pointed to his head and chest.  "I'd say that's not a trust-building maneuver, pet." 

Ralph smiled.  "No.  It's outright manipulation.  My limited psychic abilities tell me you may not agree to what I need from you."  She laughed, her eyes crackling with amusement.  "So, what's a witch to do?"  She looked away for a moment, and when she looked back to him her face was serious and direct.  "What if I make a you proposition?"  

"What game are you playing at here, Ralph?" 

She sighed.  "Follow me."  She swished Drac off her lap and walked out of the hut to the side of the rocky slope her cave hut was carved into.  She touched the rocky side of the small hill, her fingers caressing the rough surface, creating purple and red light trailings as she dragged her nails across the rocks and clay.  She removed her hand and reached out, touching his arm.  He felt a current run through him and images flashed across his mind.  He swayed and started to buckle at the knees, holding his head as a force like a dark hurricane rushed through him, leaving fragments of images—the earth in flames, humankind gathered like livestock, vampires and demons battling among each other within a state of bloodshed and chaos.  He felt torn in two: the demon in him surfaced with a bloodlust and excitement at the chaos and downfall of humanity; the soul cringed in horror at the possibility that all beauty and human potential could be lost forever.  

He felt her hand touch him again and a strength and peace coursed through him, clearing away the Dante-like images.  He looked at her incredulously, numb with shock.

She said, "I'll tell you this.  There is more than one hellmouth, and more than one slayer.   If you stay here, say for three months, I'll teach you what you will need to know and answer all your questions."

He dropped down, sitting on his heels, and lit another cigarette.   He was quiet for a few minutes, then said, "I need to think on this, Ralph.  At the moment, I'm feeling the need for a little distance between you and me."  He let his eyes settle on her, taking in the pearly-beetle black of her eyes, the messy mass of her hair, her ageless, lean, muscular form, and the buzz of power flickering around her in a blue aura.

He came to his feet and said, "Haven't thanked you though.  Can't say your motives were unselfish, but you took care of me."  He smiled at her and then said, "Think I'll move on a bit and mull over what you said."  He lit a cigarette, nodded at her, and headed down the same path that had brought him to her a month ago, prepared with each step for the arm of her power wrap around him and drag him back into her grasp.   


	5. Trust

                                                         DARK TIDES 

By Saj

NOTE:  I'M HAVING A NIGHTMARE TRYING TO GET

CERTAIN PARAGRAPHS IN ITALICS.  SOMETIMES IT

WORKS, SOMETIMES NOT.  SORRY.  EMAIL ME IF

YOU'RE DESPERATE TO SEE IT CORRECTLY FORMATTED

AND I WILL SEND IT AS AN ATTACHMENT.

Chapter 5

Trust

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.

To know the dark, go dark.  Go without sight,

And find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,

And is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

_To Know the Dark_

                                     Wendell Berry

"When you look at me, I disappear," she whispered as his sapphirine eyes caressingly swallowed her. He replied in a quiet, measured voice, "I see you."  He fondled her hair with one hand while the other roamed the land of her body, nestling into the wet warmth between her legs, as he murmured,  "All of you."  Buffy arched into his exploring fingers and closed her eyes.  His soft lips nibbled on hers as he whispered, "Always."  He stroked her wet folds until her hips were moving with the rhythm he set. She wrapped her hand lightly around his as she kissed him deeply, caressing his mouth with her tongue.  He put his arm under her and pulled her to him as he slid one finger slowly into her, then a second, stroking her inner walls as she contracted against him.  Buffy moaned uncontrollably as she clenched his fingers, her hips arching higher.  She whispered his name with an urgent tenderness.  He held her tightly as she surrendered, his fingers locked into her deeply, pushing right there, the place only he knew, while her thighs wrapped around his hand, holding him with all of her body as the electric waves of her orgasm flowed through her.  His fingers moved with her, becoming lost in the hot, dark velvet of her cunt.  Buffy let out a long, undulating cry as Spike rocked her back and forth, side to side, her hips melting against him, until their bodies were still, molded into one form, her warm breath the only thing between them.  He gently kissed her forehead, her eyes, her lips, and began to softly rock her again.  Buffy threaded her fingers through the silky curls of his hair and pressed her lips against his ear to whisper, "Forgive me."  

With a groan, Buffy woke up.  Her body felt as if all of her major bones had dissolved.  "Ohhhh", she moaned.  Spike.  She wrapped her arms around her down pillow, and hugged it to her.  Now she remembered.  He was gone.  She felt a hollowness in her chest and a moaning ache lower down.  She may never feel the full length of his body entwined with hers again.  The dead emptiness that had permeated the crypt came back to her.  

She looked at the clock.  7:00 a.m.  She had slept less than two hours.

She could hear Dawn rustling around in the kitchen.  She would be leaving for school any minute.  Damn.

Buffy jumped out of bed, grabbed her robe and flew downstairs, catching Dawn just as she was gathering up her backpack to head out the door.

"Oh, Dawn, I'm sorry.  I wanted to have breakfast with you.  Afraid I overslept."  She went over to her sister and gave her a hug.

Dawn shrugged and smiled at her, "It's okay.  No biggie.  I got your note that you would be out late. You okay?"  She had a concerned look on her face.

"Yeah, fine."  Buffy yawned, then said, "I'm good."

"What happened?"

"Nothing.  Just the usual."  A look of frustration fell over Dawn's features.  Buffy took a breath and added, "Well, actually, I did some patrolling and then I went to Spike's crypt.  I was there most of the night."

Alarm flashed across Dawn's face.  "He's not back is he?  You weren't _there_ with _him_?"

"No, no!  Just me, with me.  Just thinking about things.  His crypt is good for that, you know, mulling and pondering.  It has a quiet feel to it, kinda like a church…."

Dawn gave her a look that could peel paint.  "Yeah.  Sure.  All meditatey and church-like.  Just how I remember it."  She slung her backpack over her shoulder and headed towards the door. Stopping and turning to look back at Buffy, she said, "You miss him."

Buffy went numb, unable to pull up a convenient mask to hide behind.  She sighed and pushed onward, making an effort to be more open with Dawn.  "Sometimes.  I'm just trying to put things together in my mind.  Trying to understand."  She stepped closer to Dawn and tenderly nudged a strand of satiny hair away from her sister's face.  "You need to get to school.  You know, redeem the Summers' reputation.  We can talk later if you want."

Dawn let out a sigh and then hugged her.  "I know it's stupid and wrong, but…I think about him too."  And she was out the door and bounding down the sidewalk with the gangly legs and graceful bounce of a gazelle.  

Sagging against the doorframe, Buffy sighed worriedly.   Dawn's feelings for Spike had retreated underground when she had learned of his hurting Buffy.  They had never really talked about it.  When he disappeared from Sunnydale, she and Dawn had silently conspired to act as if he hadn't ever meant anything to them, sharing an attitude of good riddance.  Yet, Buffy knew that's not how they really felt.  Yeah, good riddance to all that was irritating about him, which was at times a whole lot.   Although she had to admit that sometimes she missed the way Spike had gotten her hackles up like no one else could, because no one else could see into her the way he had.  

She and Dawn had had different relationships with him, each with its own idiosyncrasies, and she'd bet that Dawn missed those things that had been special between her and Spike.  And that she probably felt guilty about it.  Perhaps, in truth, Dawn had a love for Spike similar to hers, a love that just grew where it shouldn't have, like the morning glory poking through a crack in the concrete wall outside, blooming against all odds.  

Sunlight shone through the open door, touching Buffy's bare shoulder.  Stretching, she raised her arms as high above her as she could while letting the warmth of the sun flow over her face.  After a minute, she sighed, closed the door and went into the kitchen to pour a glass of orange juice.  She sat down at the table and lost herself in the early morning sun and shadows playing against the natural wood of the walls.

Being more honest and open with Dawn and Xander was hard, like trying to be someone else, the ideal Buffy that lived in her imagination.  She had come to think that it wasn't just her personal neurotic baggage that made her feel a need to keep things inside, but that the strong impulse of holding things in was part and parcel of Slayer psychology.  The more she watched her efforts at being open, or vulnerable, or asking for support, the more she felt that exposing her feelings was going against some basic program.  Everything in her struggled to be self-contained and to speak cautiously, to handle things herself.  

Buffy felt a spark of anger.  They didn't understand.  How could they possibly grasp the ultimate aloneness that is central to being a Slayer?  Their constant manipulation to get her to be what they wanted, as well as her own efforts to act as if slaying was some kind of part-time job, had thoroughly exhausted her.  The bottom line was that she was a Slayer and everything in her was about that.  Even the way she loved.  She didn't love softly, openly or easily.  She loved the way she killed, with a toughness of heart and an unyielding strength of will.  And through the very act of loving, she put herself, her friends, and her family in danger.  The less they knew about her vulnerabilities and her inner world, the safer they were.  A familiar pain stirred and settled into the center of her chest.  

She got up and took her glass to the sink and started washing the dishes that had collected, enjoying the feel of the hot water and sudsy slipperiness on her hands as she slid the mint-green sponge across the white china plates.  Buffy thought about Spike and how she had been able to lose herself in him and not worry that he would be put in danger as a result.  

The flow of her thoughts suddenly stopped and she stood still with the dripping sponge in her hand.  

Worry or _care_?  

Buffy felt a layer of hot shame fall across her shoulders and chest, like a scarlet shawl.  She hadn't _cared_.  She had told herself that she could use him because he didn't mean anything to her, he was a _thing_.  A slimy film of nausea began curling around her stomach.  Or was it because he _shouldn't_ have meant anything to her?  Had she screwed him with such angry desperation as an effort to kill her desire for him?  Had she beaten him to a bloody pulp because of what truths about her would come to light if she admitted her feelings for him?  Loving Spike, even just caring about him, had caused her world to spin out of control.  

And Giles had laughed!  In that moment, with just a turn of whimsy, her craziness had become laughable and had dropped apart into pieces as light as feathers, revealing that her feelings and desire for Spike made her human, not bad.  As she had laughed with him she had been released from her inner dark prison of self-loathing and shame.  

Thank God for Giles.  

Allowing herself to love Giles, to need him, was hard for her and caused her to fear for his safety.  But, Giles, of all people, knew the risks in choosing to place his life on the line next to hers.  She had come to accept this and had surrendered to her need for his guidance and skills.  In the past few months they had been working together trying to unravel the puzzle that was a Slayer.  She told him about the changes in her body, the increase in Slayer strength and agility.  The visions.  The dreams.   He shared with her what he had been finding out about Slayer cultures and the Slayer journals.  

Oh! Buffy was jerked out of her pensive meanderings as she remembered what lay hidden in her dresser.  She quickly wiped her hands dry and then dashed upstairs and carefully pulled open the third drawer.  Her heart was pounding.  There it was.  Under a layer of cotton t-shirts lay a plain bound notebook that had arrived from Giles yesterday.  She held it in trembling hands, staring at the label:  "Shan-Ling Hu 1882 – 1900".  She had tucked it away last night before going on patrol.  

Giles had found out that the Council Watcher who had been in China at the time of the Boxer Revolution had approached Shan-Ling's last teacher, Wupshi.  The old woman, knowing that all precious items in her care would soon be lost to the chaos ripping through the country, presented the Watcher with a scroll bearing the story of Shan-Ling, put together using Shan-Ling's writings along with her own.  The original complete journal of Shan-Ling was lost to the din of revolution.  Upon the Watcher's careful delivery of the scroll, the Council had indifferently forwarded it unexamined to their archives to be stored with the other Slayer journals.

After taking a quick shower, Buffy put on her gray sweatpants and a faded t-shirt.  She pulled her hair back into a bun, left her face bare of makeup and took the notebook downstairs with her.  Pouring a cup of coffee and grabbing a donut, she headed for the training room, locking the door behind her.  She didn't want anyone knowing about the Slayer journals yet, or disturbing her as she pored over this one.  Sitting cross-legged on a newly-purchased purple meditation pillow and her back resting against the sky-blue wall, she picked up the bound translation of the story of Shan-Ling Hu.

Out of nowhere, Spike thought about the Chinese Slayer.  The very least he had deserved was a slow, torturous death at her hands.   Now he had gone and done it for her, searched out the measured and continuous agony on his own.  All that was left of him was spinning wildly about, caught and trapped as a moth in flame, and as willing to perish.  Some bloody spell, that was.  Every molecule of his burned to be near the Slayer, to serve her.  If she would allow it, he would lay before her his body and soul, stripped of all but his absolute need to protect her.  Wasn't complaining, mind you, just admiring the impressiveness of it all and harboring a strange gratitude. 

As he walked away from Ralph down the dirt trail, each muscle tense and poised to fight or make a run for it, he took stock.  He felt strong, no hint of the tremors that had been ever-present since his soul had crash-landed in the middle of his chest.  It seemed that he had traded the shakes for a constant, pulsing burn in his heart, directly under the pearlescent, crescent-shaped scar.  He winced as he remembered the excruciating pain of railroad spikes repeatedly piercing him, the last one plunging through his heart.  His chest had burst into flames, causing him to momentarily black out, only to find his heart the center of a small wildfire when he re-entered the trance dream.  There had been blinding pain and the sound of his own screams as his heart slowly burned down to a fist-sized ember.  He was pretty sure that it hadn't been a literal occurrence, yet something had to have happened on this side of reality, or why else would he bear the strange scar that should have healed by now?  Even the searing of his flesh caused by Lurky's not so tender touch had healed with little sign of scarring.

His thoughts turned to Ralph as he continued along the footpath.  She was a strange old bird and scary as hell.  And totally obsessed with him finding some long-gone spiritual purity or some such thing.   

_Did you not see and touch your innocence__?_  

What had she been going on about?  The witch had made it sound like he had misplaced it somewhere along the road, like a sodding hat or something, and it was just sitting there waiting for him to come across it again.  She may as well have asked if he had, by some chance, tripped over his virginity while trancing about.  

_Innocence_, right.  Just might have misplaced it while out and about on a killing spree.  Visceral memories from death-filled nights immediately jumped out at him.  The heat of the hunt racing through his body, laced with desire and vicious delight as he had basked in his strength and cunning.  He could call up each one, play out the seduction and crafty way he had sprung his trap and savored the slow sucking of life a drop at a time, watch the exquisite light of terror whip through their eyes, and recall the ecstatic shivers their screams had sent through him, wave after orgasmic wave.  

Stopping in his tracks, Spike tilted his head so he could concentrate his attention more fully.  He could recall all of it, every minute detail, each soft, warm corpse, and it didn't cause him either unbearable pain or intense guilty pleasure.  It was as if he held the memories intact within each cell, but they didn't have the power to cause the reactive emotional bludgeoning he had experienced before the soul-binding ritual.  It was as if the memories had been neutralized.   He could examine all the passions and cruelties of his vampiric life under a microscope and not have to look away.  Not that he didn't have feelings.  But the sadness, remorse, grief and horror, all of it was above the water line, so to speak, giving him a freedom to examine his actions and make choices not influenced by the emotional hell his soul had come wrapped in.  

Sinking down, sitting on his heels, rocking, Spike held his head in his hands.  Tears collected around his fingers, cool rivulets traveled down his face, causing dirty streaks to form against his skin as salty streams washed through layers of collected dust.

Ralph had done this.  The witch had manipulated his body and soul as if he were clay in her hands.  Suppose he should feel grateful.  She'd saved him from years of excruciating torment, probable insanity and possibly an early dusting.  Instead he felt outrage and a desire to twist her wrinkled little head clean off her skinny neck.  What right did she have to take his pain away?  It was his history, his karma, _his_ to find a way through.  His heartfelt anguish was all he had to offer for the horrendous brutality and grief he had brought into the world.  

What was in this for her?  This wasn't an act of altruistic compassion on Ralph's part, that much he was sure of.  He recalled Ralph's words, "There is an ancient and unimaginably destructive force building.  She will need you by her side."  

It was true, something dark and extremely powerful was coming.  He had felt it even before leaving Sunnydale; the demons had been gathering and the rumors brewing.  His own demon spirit had been restless, harder to control. He had been so blinded by his pain and the urgency to seek out the agonies of getting a soul that he hadn't thought about the danger he was leaving Buffy in.  

Flute-like calls of night birds floated around him along with their soft rustling among the bushes.  It was pitch black, the moon and stars lost.  He began walking faster and with his vampiric sight looked ahead, tracing the footpath as far as his eyes would allow.  The trail was narrow, strewn with rocks and overgrown with roots.  Just as Spike picked up the scent of an animal on the prowl, a male lion silently crossed the path far ahead of him, every bit of his magnificent body alert for the kill.  It came to him that he could hardly be any further from Sunnydale, or Buffy.  

Shutting his eyes, he imagined her on patrol, a quirky smile on her face as she threw puns at the latest vamp before staking him with the speed and skill he knew so well.  If he really focused he could recall her musky, vanilla scent, and if he focused harder, he could remember the particular taste and feel of his tongue against the sweet, softly textured, lushness of her moist, warm.…he _was_ an ungrateful bastard.  Buffy needed him and, thanks to Ralph, he could now return to Sunnydale undistracted by the tremors of a tormented soul. 

With each touch of his electric fingers, his demon energy pulsed through her and she soaked it in as if it were the elixir of life itself, bringing her back to her body and spirit, the vitality of it whirling through her.  His touch became tender and she shuddered, pulling away as if he had offered her a piece of rotten fruit.  With an angry sneer Spike pinned her against the cold hardness of the crypt floor and with the skill of a whore, fucked her until she was satiated. Done with him, she quickly began dressing. She inadvertently caught the expression in his eyes as he silently watched her as he lay nude on the floor, his hands behind his head.  In the flaming ice of his cool eyes she saw the angry look of a trapped and humiliated animal.

A quiver of shameful horror writhed its way through Buffy.  The memory of that night with Spike had come upon her as she had been reading about the Slayer culture in China when Shan-Ling was Slayer.  

An enclave of devotees of the Dark One, the creative force that burned at the core of all Slayers,  had existed for centuries to serve and support the Slayer.  Within the community both males and females were trained in the martial arts, sorcery, and religious ritual according to the talents of each individual.  

Vampires were revered as sacred offspring of the Dark One, who fed off their powers.  A number of spells had evolved over the centuries that worked to enthrall vampires and capture their preternatural energies for the Slayer and the Dark Mother.  The most powerful of Slayers were known by the presence of a vampire warrior at her side as she hunted.  Although vampires were perceived as holy, those that were undomesticated were dispatched of nightly in the traditional manner by the Slayer and her hunters, and those that had been tamed into service of the Slayer and her community were treated as prized slaves.

At the equinoxes, for as long as anyone could remember, the Slayer participated in tantric sexual rites using a vampire consort preened and cultivated for that purpose.  These religious rituals worked to reinforce the primal bond between Slayer and vampire and to increase the Slayer's life energy and powers. The only other times the Slayer was allowed to enter into a sexual ritual with a vampire was if she was in need of psychic or physical healing.

The elders had understood the attraction between Slayer and vampire, had known the incredible power available when their energies were harnessed and synchronized, and had put into place strict laws of behavior to maintain the Slayer culture's purity and power.  To sleep with a vampire outside of the prescribed holy rituals was punishable by public thrashing of the Slayer, and death for the vampire. To love a vampire was an unthinkable sacrilege, resulting in a ritualized flaying and burning of the Slayer's lover while she was forced to watch. 

Buffy's breath had become a series of shallow gasps as she realized that these ancient laws were as embedded and as entwined within her psyche as the chip was in Spike.  As she had slept with him, sucked his beautiful life into hers, and began to know her love for him, the inner network of Slayer cosmology ruled by ancient taboos had stormed through her screeching like an enraged siren.

Spike's swollen and bloody face looked up at her from the dirty pavement, his night-blue eyes sparking defiantly with his love for her and his willingness to take on her pain as she beat and pummeled him until he was unrecognizable.  With each blow she shrieked like a mad woman, "You're a thing!"  Her fist splitting his cheek open, "A soulless thing!"  Her fist mashing shut his left eye, "I could NEVER love you!" 

Head down, her hands in her lap, Buffy sobbed while sitting squarely on the meditation pillow.  _Forgive me, forgive me._  She sat softly crying, letting her shame and pain wash through her until she felt a stone quiet come over her.  Opening her eyes, she let them rest on her image looking back at her from the mirror on the opposite wall.  Her face was pale and hollow, her eyes raw from crying, her legs crossed in a warrior's pose.  She would not continue to be an unconscious tool of the primal forces that fueled her center.  The Slayer power was moving within her again, changing her, and she swore that this time she would be the one to wield and mold these energies, she would choose who she would become.  

With a fierce calm, Buffy picked up the journal and continued reading.  

Shan-Ling, _flashing-spirit_, had been brought from the city as a small child after she had been identified as gifted.  She was raised and taught the skills of witchcraft The Slayer of the community had a young son, Ling-Fei, _immortal spirit_.  Shan-Ling and Ling-Fei had been inseparable since they were small.  The elders smiled at the two of them, recognizing the rare entwinement of their spirits.  At the age of 14, Shan-Ling was recognized as a full sorceress.  Ling-Fei was in training as a warlock.  Shan-Ling and Ling-Fei became lovers when they were 15 and it was expected that they would marry.  The next year Ling-Fei's mother was killed by her long-time mortal enemy, Wu, a master vampire.  Ling-Fei had been with her, fighting at her side.  Those that returned reported that they last saw him bound and tied, thrown over Wu's horse as he and his followers had retreated, riding off in the direction of the mountain caves.  

My spells have taken flight in the four directions in search of my Love, but find nothing but the echoes of his heartbeat.  How will I go on when my eyes see only his and all I hear is the night filled with the bittersweet whisper of his drifting soul?

Sure that her lover was no longer alive, Shan-Ling left the village to go into ritual mourning.  While grieving alone in a sacred hut by the edge of the river, the elders visited her.

They tell me I will be called, that She will slip into my heart and I will awake to see the Demon Woman's power burning in my eyes.  The stars have whispered this.  The village now waits for me to emerge from the floating realm of the ancestors, changed into a warrior with the strength and vision of the Dark One.  While I pray and surrender my being to Her, my dreams fly along rivers that flow ceaselessly across the night plains looking for Ling-Fei.  

The next full moon, her heart hardened by grief, Shan-Ling returned to her village and took up her responsibilities as Slayer.  One evening as she patrolled the perimeter of their village alone, she was grabbed from behind.  As they wrestled, she glimpsed his pale face.  It was Ling-Fei.  He whispered in her ear, "You have made my mother proud, Slayer."  They continued to fight, neither willing to kill the other, until Ling-Fei suddenly vanished into the night.   Each night thereafter he would reappear in the shadows of the village wall.  Shan-Ling would watch his dim form as he moved, their eyes often meeting, a cold knowing spreading between them.  The fifth night she followed him as he wound his way back into the mountains.

It was then that Spike became aware of being followed.  There were maybe four on either side of the path, shadowing him, their sentient heartbeats a chorus of little drums pulsing through the bush around him.  Further on ahead was the other, not moving, waiting.  It was the same energy, the same person that had tracked him those nights that he had been wandering about.

Bugger.  So, the witch wasn't letting him fly away after all.  Should have known.  He weighed the odds.  The only weapons he had were what were built-in, the basic vampire hardware with a slight but significant modification.  Bloody hell.  

That left him with just his speed, wit and charm.

She began to take form, as if being shaped by darkness itself.  She stood ahead of him in the middle of the path, leaning on a tree, a spear resting casually in one hand, her other hanging loose at her side.  She was as tall as he, and as muscular.  She wore a white, cotton halter-top and loose turquoise pants that ballooned around her as the breeze shifted.  A wide gold band was wrapped around her left bicep.  On her forehead, between her eyes, was a white flash of paint.  Her hair was a wild mass of black dreadlocks, pulled back like unruly snakes into a ponytail.  

Walking towards her, Spike hoped that a plan would come to him soon.  The others were still trailing him, keeping to the bushes.  He did what he usually did in this kind of situation.  He shifted into a cool, predatory stance and pulled out a cigarette.  He stopped and lowered his head to light the fag, noting that the scouts had also stopped.  When he looked up, he saw that she was now walking steadily towards him with the confidence and stealth of a wild cat.

As she got closer, he could see her more clearly.  Her face was round, her skin the color of dark coffee, and her features as perfect as an African sculpture, her lips full, and her nose elegantly long.  Her almond-shaped black eyes spoke of a touch of Asian blood.  He could see what looked like snakes tattooed on each forearm, graceful black spirals twisting up from her wrists.  Spike scanned her body, taking in the fullness of her breasts and the curve of her generous hips.  He gasped involuntarily.  She was magnificent.  A shining, black warrior, an Amazon Medusa.

"Well what have we here?"  His eyes took quick stock of her as she stood before him.  "It's you I have to thank for the blood."  He stood still and looked at her intently, wrapping his vampire senses around her.  "Isn't that right, Slayer?"

There was a magnetic force drawing them towards each other.  Maybe he could use that to his advantage.  A plan was emerging.  He flashed his most seductive bad-boy smile and narrowed his eyes, looking at her through the silky length of his dark lashes.  He would use his unfailing charm and vampire-of-the Called-variety attraction to distract her, and then shift into vampiric speed and run like hell.  

She moved easily with the grace and power of an animal confident of its place in the world and positioned herself just far enough from Spike as to be challenging, and near enough to tempt him to be careless.  She smiled, her teeth flickering white in the blackness of the night.  "Hello, there.  You're Ralph's vampire."  Her dark eyes slowly flitted over him.  "Aren't you beautiful though?"  She laughed and added, "Heard you gave Ralph a black eye.  That's only cause she wasn't expecting it."  She quickly leapt and somersaulted over Spike, giving him a quick knock on the head as she flew above him.

Spike bent low and turned to face her.  "Playful, are you, love?  And awful sure of yourself."  He quickly moved towards her and without thinking planted a light blow to her right eye.  "Looks like Ralph's not the only one who might benefit from being a little more alert, pet.  Maybe she should be out here…."  He stepped back, stunned, as it registered that the chip hadn't gone off.  He also realized in that same moment that he had lost his chance to make a run for it. 

Rolling his eyes, he let out a hiss, "Balls."

In the time it took him to utter the curse, he found himself pinned tight from behind in a head-hold.  The Slayer looked sideways at him with a satisfied smile on her lips.  "I'm a little disappointed.  You're far more pretty than smart."  She gave his head a slight twist, just enough to tell him she was in a position to break his neck.

"Aaarrgh!  Bloody hell, woman!"  He managed to flip her over him, dropping her onto the rocky ground.  He quickly straddled her and securely pinned her wrists against the pebbled earth, the eyes of the tattooed serpents glaring up at him.

An amused smirk crossed her face as she said, "Ahh, you've got me now vampire.  What ever shall I do?"

Her small group of warriors had emerged from the cover of the brush and had gathered around, laughing and taunting the Slayer.

"Hey, Sabrine, you better watch out or we'll be training a new Slayer."  From the laughter Spike could tell they had no belief whatsoever that he would come out on top here.

"Sabrine, is it?"  He looked, really looked into her dark brown eyes glinting with amusement.  She was utterly and completely fearless.  Beneath him, her warm, generous body was relaxed, waiting.  

With a twist of a smile and cheerful affect, Sabrine said, "Hey, just call me Slayer.  All the vamps around here do."  She cocked her head, studying him, and added in a low taunting voice, "Hear you've got a thing for Slayers."

The Slayer vibration was buzzing through him.  Different than Buffy, but Slayer all the same.  His body was responding with the predictable combination of alarm and arousal.  The sweet sticky smell of her sweat along with the promise of the coppery taste of blood caused his hunger to swell.  He slipped into game face, slow and graceful, like the smooth glide of a crocodile surfacing.  

She took in every detail of his transformed features as if examining an esoteric work of art, all traces of amusement gone. "Aren't you a gorgeous beast," she whispered at last, with a hint of awe in her voice and a glimmering of strange passion flashing through her dark eyes.

Spike could feel her getting ready to make her move, though he wasn't clear what that would be.  Her companions had moved in and formed a circle around them, their attention hyper-alert within their silence.  He could sense her sending them signals to hold off, and could feel their tension as they readied to intervene at her cue.  A fury rippled through him.  He wanted to be done with this.  Fucking tired of Slayers jerking him around.  

"Struck a chord, did I?"  She said softly.  

"You could say that.  Might want to be more careful who you play with, love."

She looked into the golden fire of his monster eyes as if they could foretell the future, and then softly said, "I am nothing if not careful."  With that, she slowly turned her head exposing the full length of her neck, the muscles pulled taut, her face as calm as if she were asking for a neck rub.

Closing his eyes, Spike sank into the pulsing sensations of ravenous desire that were coursing through him, a bloodlust as intense as he could remember.  Simultaneously he was aware of the relaxed strength of her body beneath him, centered and ready.  What was she playing at?  He forced his demon down, letting his game face drop away like a dissolving wax mask.  With a steely tone of impatience, he hissed, "Don't fancy Slayer blood, pet."  He turned her head to face him.  Her expression was of a puzzled seriousness, her mouth sensuously full, her eyes diving deeply, exploring him.

Time seemed to freeze as they looked at one another, each trying to penetrate the other's will. 

Without averting her gaze, Sabrine said, "I've come to talk with you."  She said it so quietly that only he could hear.  Then she smiled, a grin really, the kind that was clean and clear, that would later flash in his memory like a cloudless day.  "But, I got sidetracked."

Warm, golden light washed through his chest, caressing the spot where pain had been pulsing steadily.  He took in the honest play of her smile, and for a moment felt innocent and young, a man delighting in the simple pleasure of a woman's beauty. Keeping her pinned with a half-hearted hold, he let himself rest in her unyielding gaze.  The faraway sounds of the shuffling of feet brought his attention back to the present.  He noted with some relief the relaxing tension within the circle of her warriors.  With a slight nod in their direction, he asked sarcastically, "And did your friends come along for a little chat as well?  "

Pulling him in further, deeper with her eyes, she slowly said,  "If I had wanted to hurt you, or kill you, or drag you back to Ralph, I would have done so by now."  

Shan-Ling hid outside the mountain cave where she had followed Ling-Fei until she was sure she was not detected. Then she quietly moved closer to the opening and looked inside.  Many candles were lit and she could see clearly Ling-Fei in the embrace of his lover, Wu.  

_Their luminescent pale forms writhed in the candlelight, their male groans of pleasure taunting me as I watched through a web of tears. I remained unable to move, until Ling-Fei's cry of ecstatic release brought my attention to the moment. I moved silently into a hidden crevice outside the cave and spread out my spell ingredients, my heart beating wildly, my fingers glistening with tears as they deftly worked my will as I called for the Dark Mother to enter me.  _

The spell took shape just as dawn broke and the screams of Wu could be heard throughout the mountains as the magic wove through him, slowly draining him of all life.  Shan-Ling entered the cave and without emotion watched Wu twist in agony as his form slowly dissolved.  Still nude, Ling Fei stood waiting for her.  He bowed briefly, then looked into her eyes, retaining his human face.  "You have honored the death of my mother."  He stepped closer to her, offering himself. 

 How could I, Shan-Ling, the servant of all that is good, not kill him, a soulless creature of the underworld, an instrument of evil? Betrayer of his own mother!  In my hand the stake stood firm against his breathless chest, ready to pierce his heart, and he stood perfectly still so that I would not fail.  "Shan-Ling", he whispered, "You must do this. Do it now."  But, I could not.    

Instead, Shan-Ling returned to the village with Ling-Fei as her prisoner, his stripped body covered with blood-encrusted wounds and swollen bruises where she had whipped and beat him.  She declared that he was to be domesticated so that he could serve her.  She, with the other sorceresses, worked a calling spell on him and spun other magics to tame his wildness.  He became "her" vampire, her warrior, and fought at her side.  

Spike had been her warrior, Buffy thought.  He had fought beside her, ready to give his life for hers without a second thought.  He'd probably get in a sarcastic remark or two and throw her a complaining look before crumbling into dust, but he would die for her without hesitation.  She had used him for the strength and formidability he brought to their battles.  She had insisted that he be part of the Scooby team, and yet never acknowledged him.  He had seemed content to just be near her.  He was an amazing fighter, an invaluable comrade, and yet she had taken his alliance for granted, as her clear due.  He obsequiously thanked her, saying she treated him like a man.  She hadn't replied, just said that she was counting on him.  She hadn't treated him like a man.  She was from of a long line of Slayers with their own domesticated vampire warriors, and that was how she treated him.  Buffy felt hollow inside as the pieces connected one after another, forming a picture of her participation in a Slayer lineage that disgusted her.

With a hard, dead feeling in her chest, Buffy went back to the journal.

Shan-Ling, as other Slayers before her, gave her body over to the Dark Mother at the equinox rituals.  Ling-Fei, as her vampire, was used as the instrument for the sexual transmission of power. 

_As I entered the shrine room, hundreds of lit candles lined the walls.  The sweet scent of plum blossom incense floated in the air and the low sing-song of chanting soothed my fears and softened my heart.  I walked to the altar and took the waiting gold cup into my hands.  First I drank half of the potion, then I walked to the cushions where Ling-Fei sat, and handed him the cup, from which he drank the remainder.  A slow drumbeat filled the room and set off a throbbing within my body.  The world became soft and beautiful, stirred only by the quickening of my desire.  I saw that Ling-Fei was now nude and laid out on a black silk futon, his wrists and ankles bound by thick leather strips.  This vampire belonged to me.  I let the green brocade robe fall from my shoulders and lay my bare skin against his.  The drums and chanting seemed to fill every pore until we were both shaking with the Dark One's demanding need.  As I mounted Ling-Fei the ecstatic power of our combined energies moved through me like fire, traveling up through my spine, bursting into a white flame just above the center of my head.  As the hot clarity of my eyes met the darkness of Ling-Fei's, I knew that our desire for each other would not be contained within the boundaries of sanctioned rituals.  As we swam the currents of passion, I understood that I would hungrily search out Ling-Fei's body again._

.

Shan-Ling knew she must leave the enclave before they were found out.  She announced that she was going to the city to study with Wupshi, a famous but not altogether respectable witch.  She and Ling-Fei, with a small group of her warriors traveled to the city, where Shan-Ling returned to her mother's house, residing there as she studied with Wupshi and met with Ling-Fei at night.  

 I am as nothing, a breeze of longing willing to dissolve at his feet.  And the moon teases me, shining upon his black hair so it appears as water reflecting the heavens, each star pulling me closer to him.  I am lost, my heart flying from my chest like a small bird to be near him.  What am I to do?  I love what cannot be loved.  May the Dark Mother forgive me. 

It was through Wupshi that she learned of the soul-casting spell, a practice nearly forgotten, regarded as an act of blasphemous perversion against the Dark One.  Wupshi said it was forbidden because vampires with souls became too human-like, and even more powerful, containing the forces of both heaven and hell within them.  It was a dangerous spell to cast, often more than a vampire could handle.  It had, in fact, been used for a time as punishment for domesticated vampires and a form of torture for others.  Without the follow-up magics, a vampire with a soul would likely go mad.  If it were to be found out that they were planning to apply the spell to Ling-Fei, they would be killed, even Shan-Ling.  

Ling-Fei did not desire the return of his soul.  But because of his love for me, he agreed.  He came to Wupshi's hut at midnight and we began the ritual.  By daybreak his heart was broken, his mind a knot of anguish twisted with grief and remorse.  He would not let me touch him, but insisted that he must go off alone.  Wupshi gave him some herbs to help him with his pain.  At dusk I watched him walk across the plains until I could see him no longer, my heart twisted with guilt.  I went in search of him, finding him near daybreak.  He sat in meditation on the edge of a rocky bluff, the morning sun gradually creeping across the rocky sands.  I called to him as I ran up the path. As I reached the top of the bluff he turned to me and held up his hand that I would come no further.  "Forgive me Shan-Ling."  He lowered his eyes and softly said, "My Slayer."  As he looked again at me, I could see that his eyes were calm yet there was a wildness in the dark aura around him and his anguish tore through me like a red-hot blade.  I fell to my knees several feet from him, my forehead dropping to the ground.  "Forgive me," I whispered, "My warrior, my Love."  We held each other with our eyes as sunlight slowly embraced the body of my Beloved.  I could not bear for him to die a slow death.  Calling on my inner powers, I raised my hand and sent out a stream of fire that took my lover as quickly as if he had never been.  The ashes of Ling-Fei are well hidden, buried under a willow tree where we used to meet and make love when we were 15.

It was a few days later that Shan-Ling saw her fate in the sea-blue sparkle of Spike's eyes.  She saw more than her death there.  She saw a lover, a tender poet whose heart ruled his actions, a kind, vulnerable boy whose soul was lost in a moment of rage and despair.  She saw also a warrior who would serve a Slayer well.  She entered the temple that night alone, telling her warriors to return to the community, that she would follow shortly.  She wove her most powerful calling spell and prayed that this one, with his youthful beauty and arrogance, would live to know the fullness of his powers and his heart, as she had wished for Ling-Fei.

Buffy set the journal aside on the floor next to her and stretched forward, lightly holding her bare feet as she rested her head on her knees, tears rolling over her warm skin onto the cold, gray concrete.  She had been caught off guard by the intimacy and odd familiarity of the strange, poetic tale.  A deep sadness pooled in her heart and now coursed through her as if she was again within the form of Shan-Ling, who in the end had been shattered and had placed herself before Spike, knowing he would free her.  

Buffy had never let herself think that there might be a way that Spike could get his soul back.  She wondered why.  Clearly there had been the curse that was put upon Angel, and that Willow had been able to duplicate.  It made sense that others with those particular powers would have come up with similar spells.  Buffy realized that she had been furious with herself for loving Spike because he did not have a soul.  And she had been in a rage that she could love any vampire other than Angel.  She had not wanted to let go of that last tendril of connection and hope.  She had constantly said to Spike in so many ways, sometimes blatantly, that she could not love him because he was not Angel.

The truth was like a torchlight with its huge brightness.  Buffy flinched, expecting to feel a flood of gut-twisting grief about Angel.  But it wasn't there.  In fact, it suddenly seemed ludicrous to her that she had been holding on to him all this time.  She still loved him, but she had stopped being in love with him not long after he went to L.A.  He had changed, or she had come to know him better.  Whatever.  She'd take Spike's soulless, smart-ass, arrogant gorgeousness any day over the soulful, dark broodiness that was Angel.  Buffy suddenly laughed, picturing Spike with a soul and all sensitive and moody, like he'd ever go along with such a thing.  He'd probably rather be dusted. 

She and Shan-Ling had loved soulless demons, and had not been able to accept the truth of it. Shan-Ling knew what torment a soul would bring to Ling-Fei, and Buffy had seen Angel suffer terribly even after a century of adaptation.  How much Ling-Fei must have loved Shan-Ling to defy his demon nature and agree to the ritual, and how tragic.  Shan-Ling had soon realized the selfishness of her act and the mistaken awfulness of the ritual, but by then she had lost Ling-Fei. 

The light had faded in the training room and the air had a chill to it.  Buffy lay back, resting her head on a rolled up blanket.  She tried to imagine how powerful Shan-Ling had been, having been a sorceress _and_ a Slayer with her lover and vampire warrior at her side.  Looking up at the water-stained ceiling and the labyrinth of copper pipes above her, her eyes became heavy.  

It was a moonless night.  The blackness of it blinded her as she ran along the rough terrain as sure-footed as if she had been born of the warm earth under her bare feet.  She had to warn him.  The dusty air danced around her nostrils, carrying the smell of hunter and prey along with the pungent odor of her own terror.  The sound of brush breaking close by sent a flood of adrenalin through her, pushing her to break into a faster sprint, the rapid in and out of her breath like the delicate beat of birds' wings cutting through the silence.  Faster, faster, run faster. She could feel the speed and power of her pursuer as the steady, pounding rhythm of its gait traveled along the earth's surface and up through the soles of her feet.  Keep running, don't slow down, hurry, hurry.  She must get to him!  Her toe hit a protruding root and she flew into the air and tumbled to the ground, rolling over rock after rock, their hard reality imprinting upon her Slayer skin.  Just as she managed to get to her feet, the thing was upon her, reeking of blood and death.  Its thick, wiry fur scraped against her bare skin as she fell backwards, her head hitting the ground so hard her vision blurred.  She caught a glimpse of golden-red eyes before knife-like claws cut into her shoulders, nailing her down while razor-sharp teeth tore into her neck. She struggled to bring her stake up into the beast's chest.  Screaming, her body burning with pain, she drove the stake upward a second time.  It made its way through greasy fur and tough hide, finally sinking into something soft and muscled deep within its chest.  

It lay upon her breast, gasping, and looked into her eyes.  For a second it shimmered into Faith, her face a portrait of shock and disbelief, before breaking into a low laugh and dissolving with a glimmer back into the demon, its foul breath coming to an abrupt halt.  

The coppery scent and hot slickness of blood was soaking into her clothes, seeping into her hair, pooling on to her face.  She pushed with all her remaining strength against the carcass, and as it began to roll off her, she felt it change.  Suddenly, cool skin brushed against the slick hotness of her own as a limp body sank to the earth next to her.  She reached over and felt silky-smooth sinewy muscle. As her hand flowed over the lifeless form, she froze.  She knew every inch of this body.   Oh my God.  Spike.  

She pulled herself closer to him, and went to wrap her arms around his chest and shoulders when she noticed that her arms had become wiry and threaded with tough muscle sheathed in leathery skin.  She leaned in close to Spike and placed her lips on his.  As she spoke, her voice was ancient and raspy, the words coming from deep within her chest in a soft, crackling rumble, "You are **mine**."  

She could feel the blood draining out of the ancient body from the deep neck wound.  The roughness of the hard ground beneath her began to soften and the sound of a faraway voice, young and tender, was carried through the hot thick air, "Ni shr wo de, ni shr wo de."  

Oh God.  Her heart was pounding, the adrenaline pumping.  Buffy sat up and tried to catch her breath.  Her t-shirt was soaked and clinging to her.  With a start she looked down, half expecting her chest to be covered in blood.  She took a deep breath as she realized she had awaken from a nightmare.  The sleek feel of Spike's unmoving body lingered on her fingers and lips, the scent of dust and blood still registered in her nostrils.  She held her arms and hands out in front of her, turning them, examining the soft, tanned skin. She looked around the training room, taking in the bone-colored concrete and noting the half-opened translation of Shan-Ling's journal next to her.  The afternoon light filtered in through the side windows, illuminating the pages.  

This was no mere dream, not even a run-of-the-mill Slayer nightmare.  The fast, hard beat of her heart knocked against her chest.  Her body zinged with a surety that Spike was in danger.  She shook her head, trying to loosen her thoughts.  Spike was always in danger.  He courted it like a lover.  But, this was different.  This was more than physical danger and the threat lie in the heart of a Slayer, and it wasn't her.  

Where was he?  She felt a terror creep up within her screaming.  She touched her fingertips to her cheek, trying to catch the last of the sensation of Spike's smooth skin before it dissolved into the sun pouring upon her face.  She wrapped her bare arms around herself, while waves of aching, howling space crashed upon her.

Raw energy flowed through her and he knew without a doubt that she was the one with the ultimate power in this situation. She had been playing him so she could observe his strength, his moves, his mind.  Spike became very still inside, trying to sense out her mystery.  She had more than the standard arsenal of a skilled fighter.  He looked at her questioningly.  Maybe he should see a little more of what she's got.  He increased the pressure of his hold, securing his control of her.  He threw her a carefully fashioned arrogant smile and said, "You might be a little overconfident there, Sabrine.  As I see it, it's me that's got the upper hand here."  He waited to see what she would do, not doubting that he would pay for his curiosity.  

Electric and alive, the air between them shimmered with a metaphysical heat.  The vampire/Slayer energy was arcing between them, gathering power.  Sabrine acknowledged him with her eyes and then with an imperceptible act on her part, she cut the connection flowing between them.  Spike felt as if he had been dropped into a frozen bardo of dead space, never more aware of being an animated corpse.  

Soft smile and seductive gaze put aside, she now looked at him with a hard firmness that announced that the game had changed.  In a commanding voice, she said,  "I'm getting a little impatient.  I suggest you release your hold voluntarily while you are still able to make that decision."  

Her body began to tighten, preparing for a move.  Spike began a serious consideration of his options.  He could overpower her, but he wasn't sure for how long.  He could grab her head and give it a good twist, but hell, he didn't want to kill her.  

Before he could finish his analysis of the predicament he had brought upon himself, he felt a magnetic pull directing his eyes toward hers.  As they made eye contact the world began to swirl around him.  Sabrine began to transform, her body becoming that of a furred beast reeking of decay, with eyes that glowed greenish-gold with the unmistakable power of a hell demon.  In a reflexive reaction Spike moved to break the creature's neck, but he was flying through the air before the command ever made it from his brain to his hands.  He was on his feet almost immediately after he had landed.  Before him stood Sabrine, as casual and calm as when he first laid eyes on her.

"Grrrrr."  She said softly.  She flashed a wide child-like grin at him, obviously pleased with herself.  "Did I pass?"

Rubbing his head, causing his brownish-blond curls to fall into further disarray, he replied, "Yeah, I'd say you passed, pet.  Haven't run across a shape-shifter in a long time.  Impressive job."  He looked around, assessing the situation again.  There was no sign of her warriors.  He gave a quick throw of his vampire sense around the area, but didn't detect any heartbeat other than hers.  Raising an eyebrow, he looked at her questioningly. 

She walked up to him until she stood right in front of him, the heat of her body flowing on to his in soft waves, carrying the scent of musk and papaya.  She said softly, "You must return to the village."

Spike could feel the moist warmth of her breath drift across his face as she spoke.  "Look, love.  I can't stay.  I can feel the forces rising up from beneath us, just as you do.  I've a Slayer a world away that I've got to get to.  She's where I need to be.  If I have to, I'll take you on, but I'm not going with you."

She moved closer still and spoke, for the first time using his name, "Spike, listen to me.  You have unknowingly garnered mystical abilities that you know nothing of, let alone how to use.  You want your Slayer to live?  Then come with me while you can.  There is much we need to teach you before you will be ready to meet what is coming."

Oh, Christ.  Her words were as seductive as Ralph's had been.  _Trust me, poet._  Right.  He did a quick scan but didn't pick up any signs of thrall nosing about.  He looked directly into her dark eyes and asked, "What undeveloped mysterious powers do I have that are so important as to keep me from where I belong?"

Sabrine dropped her head a minute and then looked back into his face.  "You have the potential to be far more powerful than Ralph and me combined.  You are central to the continued dominance of the human race over the demon populations.  As a result, you are in great danger even as we speak.  The evilest of forces is aware of your existence. You will never make it back to your Slayer in one piece if you continue your journey in your present state of ignorance.  I speak the truth."

A shudder snaked through his spine.  There was truth in her words, although just what was true and what wasn't was anyone's guess.  _You are central to the continued dominance of the human race over the demon populations._  Right.  That was bit was a little over the top.  Okay, first he's "called," and then he's imbued with mystical powers.  Was this a ploy to keep him from being at Buffy's side when all hell broke loose?  Shit.  He needed to find out more of what was going on here.  Looking at Sabrine, he asked, "How do I know she'll be safe till I get there?"

Sabrine shook her head slowly.  "There are no guarantees or promises in a Slayer's world.  I can tell you that Buffy Summers is alive and well as we speak, that the forces gathering in Sunnydale are not yet ready to strike, and that we are doing all we can to help her."

Spike opened his mouth to ask more, but Sabrine spoke first, glancing around them.  "Listen, we have to get out of here.  We are not safe.  I promise that all questions will be answered.  But let us leave now."

Sabrine had taken on the stance of preparing for battle, a look of uneasiness having come over her face.  Just then he felt it.  It was as if a dark force was pushing into his mind, clouding out his ability to think.  He put his hands to his head and started to fall forward when Sabrine grabbed him.  He heard her speak a series of words he didn't understand, and then the bludgeoning darkness lifted.  He looked up at her, shaken.

"What the hell?"

An urgency was written all over her face.  "Are you coming?  I can protect you until we get back to the village, as long as you stay near me.  But we must hurry.  My warriors are making sure the way is clear before us."  She hesitated, then added.  "I could make you come, but I won't.  This is your decision."

He looked at the trail that led to back to the village and to Ralph, and then glanced at Sabrine.  She stood regally tall and as still as a statue, as if she had been frozen in time. Then Spike realized that she was in a state of deep concentration, her eyes closed, tears gathering at their corners.  Her lips barely moved as she chanted silent incantations, protecting the space around them.

Spike sighed, lowered his head for a second, then looked up and rolled his eyes.  Bugger.  A shudder of dread passed through him as he accepted the inevitable.  He supposed Ralph would be waiting for him.  Christ, for all he knew it could have been her dicking around in his head just now.  Wouldn't have been the first time.  

Ralph glanced about at the small group sitting at the round oak table. "There's no reason at all that you should trust me.  In fact, you should not.  Are you under the delusion that I trust you?"  The strange, crinkly brown witch looked at them with piercing black eyes that reminded Willow of the little shiny beetles that scampered under her feet in Sunnydale.   "What I am suggesting is that it is perhaps to our mutual advantage to forge a partnership of sorts, based on self-interest.  Trust will come or not.  That remains to be seen."  

They were gathered in the home of Blythe, the most powerful witch in England and the head of the London coven.  A fire burned in the hearth, giving off much needed warmth against the gray drizzle that seemed to seep indoors.  Willow took a sip of her tea, Earl Grey swimming in cream.  Giles sat next to her, and next to him was Blythe, then two other witches and a warlock.  Lastly, there was Rose, the renegade Council librarian.

Giles nodded to Ralph and then spoke.  "Indeed, Ralph, you have mystified and fascinated us with the extent of your information, and, of course, your magical powers.  You seem to know all about the Council, the histories of Slayers, of vampires, even of Watchers.  You describe a hidden culture that seems unbelievable if for no reason other than your assertion that it has existed since the appearance of the First Slayer.  You seem to offer us a great deal to think about."  He looked intently at Ralph as he quietly asked, "And just what might you be seeking from us, then?"

Spike's bare body lay spread out on a bedroll of coarse blankets, his bluish-white form dappled with the soft pinkish-purple light of dawn as it filtered in through the dark mesh-covered opening above him.  With her eyes Sabrine sensuously traced each line and plane of his sleeping body. The soft hollow of his neck, the defined muscular curves of his arms, and the baby-soft curly line of hair that traveled from just below his navel to the nest of brown silkiness at his groin.  She could imagine her fingers and tongue exploring and tasting the snowy plains and valleys of this one.  A flush of impatient heat and possessiveness ran up her spine as she continued to study him, understanding completely that she had not known one as exquisitely beautiful or as unbelievably dangerous as this rare and foolish vampire.

Buffy hit the black leather punching bag as fast and hard as she could, trying to release the feelings of fear and powerlessness her dream had left her with.  She let loose with a series of blows leaving her fists burning and her right hand bleeding, but still the feeling of Spike's limp body in her dream lingered on her fingertips and the certain knowledge that he was in grave danger lay chillingly rooted in her chest.  As she kicked, punched, and screamed, images of the leathery ancient crone and the Chinese Slayer kept circling around her.  She could still hear that crusty voice whispering in her ear, "He is **mine**".  Breathing hard, Buffy stood in the center of the training room and began to unwrap the tape from her hands.  As she flexed her bleeding fingers, she looked around the room and heard herself say slowly and softly, "No, he is not yours.  He is mine."  There was silence in the darkened room, and then Buffy screamed, "Do you hear?  **Mine**!  He is mine!"   As she headed for the door, she added quietly, "And I will find him."

To be continued…

Thanks to Chase and Marianne for such generous and helpful beta'ing.

Feedback is so very much appreciated: sajuno@earthlink.net

Sorry these chapters are so slow in the coming.  Thanks for staying with me.


	6. Power

**** **** **DARK TIDES**

By Saj

**Where we left off:**

**Spike:**

He looked at the trail that led to back to the village and to Ralph, and then glanced at Sabrine.  She stood regally tall and as still as a statue, as if she had been frozen in time. Then Spike realized that she was in a state of deep concentration, her eyes closed, tears gathering at their corners.  Her lips barely moved as she chanted silent incantations, protecting the space around them.

Spike sighed, lowered his head for a second, then looked up and rolled his eyes.  Bugger.  A shudder of dread passed through him as he accepted the inevitable.  He supposed Ralph would be waiting for him.  Christ, for all he knew it could have been her dicking around in his head just now.  Wouldn't have been the first time.  

**Ralph, Willow and Giles****:**

Ralph glanced about at the small group sitting at the round oak table. "There's no reason at all that you should trust me.  In fact, you should not.  Are you under the delusion that I trust you?"  The strange, crinkly brown witch looked at them with piercing black eyes that reminded Willow of the little shiny beetles that scampered under her feet in Sunnydale.   "What I am suggesting is that it is perhaps to our mutual advantage to forge a partnership of sorts, based on self-interest.  Trust will come or not.  That remains to be seen."  

**Sabrine:******

Spike's bare body lay spread out on a bedroll of coarse blankets, his bluish-white form dappled with the soft pinkish-purple light of dawn as it filtered in through the dark mesh-covered opening above him.  With her eyes Sabrine sensuously traced each line and plane of his sleeping body. The soft hollow of his neck, the defined muscular curves of his arms, and the baby-soft curly line of hair that traveled from just below his navel to the nest of brown silkiness at his groin.  She could imagine her fingers and tongue exploring and tasting the snowy plains and valleys of this one.  A flush of impatient heat and possessiveness ran up her spine as she continued to study him, understanding completely that she had not known one as exquisitely beautiful or as unbelievably dangerous as this rare and foolish vampire.

**Buffy**:

Buffy hit the black leather punching bag as fast and hard as she could, trying to release the feelings of fear and powerlessness her dream had left her with.  She let loose with a series of blows leaving her fists burning and her right hand bleeding, but still the feeling of Spike's limp body in her dream lingered on her fingertips and the certain knowledge that he was in grave danger lay chillingly rooted in her chest.  As she kicked, punched, and screamed, images of the leathery ancient crone and the Chinese Slayer kept circling around her.  She could still hear that crusty voice whispering in her ear, "He is **mine**".  Breathing hard, Buffy stood in the center of the training room and began to unwrap the tape from her hands.  As she flexed her bleeding fingers, she looked around the room and heard herself say slowly and softly, "No, he is not yours.  He is mine."  There was silence in the darkened room, and then Buffy screamed, "Do you hear?  **Mine**!  He is mine!"   As she headed for the door, she added quietly, "And I will find him."

****

Chapter 6

Power 

_Your power is rooted in darkness._  

_A creature whose darkness rivals my own._ .  _Find it. _

_ The darkness.  Find your true nature._

                                                                                       Dracula, S4, Ep.

_Lavender gossamer mists floated among layers of downy cloud drifting through the sultry air.    As the last light of the African sun was transformed into a fiery sunset, a tiny silhouette appeared against the horizon.  Spike studied the figure, squinting his eyes to see more clearly.  He leaned against a tree, waiting, watching, sensing as the sun melted into the purple line of distant hills. He felt a spark of recognition just as the small form disappeared within the enveloping darkness._

_"I've been looking everywhere for you."_

_Spike turned to the small woman whohad materialized behind him.  "I've been lost," he said in a soft, apologetic voice.  "Seemed to have got myself stuck here.  It's a bugger of a mess."_

_She moved closer to him and reached for his hand.  As he felt her familiar grip,she said, "It's all right**.  **Come on, Spike.  I know the way out."_

_He played tenderly with her fingers as he held her soft hands in both of his, and brought them to his lips.  How could he tell her?  The silky skin of his scar began to burn.  "Can't, love.  Can't leave," he said, quietly.  "Get yourself off now,to where you'll be safe.  Go now, pet.  She'll be along any minute."  The moment he released her hands,a small bird flew up into the sky.  It glimmeredin the moonlight as it skimmed across its gliding form.  In the same moment  the small bird took flight, his soul broke loose from the cage of his chest and soared toward the pale moon._

_High above the earth, Spike watched his abandoned physical form below become smaller and smaller.  He could feel, hear, and taste the gauzy night around and inside ofhim.  The only sound was the strong wing beat of the iridescent bird next to him---or what was left of him, which seemed to be nothing more than his consciousness and five senses._

_A high-pitched cry pierced the air,and suddenly the sky was thick with thousands of birds, circling and swirling around him, through him.  The tiny bird next to him flew higher, her shrill cries becoming louder and louder.  Spike felt free, liberated from the passions and suffering he had known both as a human and vampire.  In this moment he seemed to be a simple wisp of spirit,flying home to the shimmering white brilliance of the full moon._

_The little bird flew close to the moon, so close that all Spike could see was the gleamof rocky whiteness amidst countless sharp shadowed crevices.  Then she turned and began a slow descent back towards the shimmering blue pearl of earth. The flocks spread out, surrounding the single bird.  She pulled him along by an invisible tether, keeping him close to her, his soul flowing with hers as she circled lower and lower, until the Southern California coastline became visible and distinct**.  **Then her cries stopped, and the flocks of companion birds scattered across the heavens, disappearing behind the pinkish clouds of the coming dawn.  He felt a heaviness descend upon him, congealing him into form again.  He began to feel the burdens of fear and attachment, love and heartbreak, desire and hunger, the vulnerability to death, to darkness, to…_

_"Where am I, love?"_

_She took his hand and pulled him to her. "Here, with me."  She kept one arm around his waist as she reached down with the other, picking up his weathered black leather duster and wrappingit around them.  Within the warm darkness of the heavy coat she held him close, layingher head against his chest. "You're safe now," she said gently._

_Spike looked around.  The room was familiar, and not. A hot pain was gathering within the scar tissue on his chest, becoming so intense he felt it would burn right through to his spine. He stroked Buffy's back, drinking in the warm strength he knew so intimately. He sighed and rested his forehead on the silky blond tangles pressed against him.   "Buffy, love, she's not letting me go, pet. She's not done with me."  He placed his fingers under her chin and tipped her face so that her eyes would meet his. "Listen, love, you need to..." At that moment a presence filled the training room: the air became cold and time itself froze.  Spike tried to speak, but his words were trapped within layers of icy silence.  He continued looking into her eyes even as he was pulled from her grasp, and dissolving beneath her fingertips. _

Someone was gently touching his face, "It's all right.  Come on, Spike, wake up."

Throbbing razor-edged heat radiated from the scar on his chest to his back. Anger, fear and grief pooled in a hot sludge at his throat.  Spike took a deep breath and opened his eyes, looking around the room.  It took a minute to remember where he was: Africa, Ralph's village, in a hut where Sabrine had left him.  Was that this morning?  

"You were having a nightmare.  What were you so afraid of?"  Sabrine was squatting next to him, her warm hand resting on his shoulder, light and comforting.  He struggled to sit up, his nakedness immediately apparent.  The thought crossed his mind to reach for a blanket to cover himself, but he didn't have it in him to pretend at modesty.  Besides, it was obvious she was far from uncomfortable with his bareness, though the realization made him a bit uneasy."How long did I sleep?" he asked, reaching for his clothes. He looked through the mesh opening above him and saw the sky was pitch dark noted it was dark**, **with a scattering of stars.

"You slept all day.  It's an hour or so after sundown.  I thought vampires had built-in clocks, always knowing exactly where the sun or moon was."

He rubbed his head a bit and made waking up growly sounds.  "A bit groggy here.  My vampire time mechanisms don't seem to be fully functioning."

Spike frowned slightly, the remnants of the dream making him feel far away and disconnected.  Sabine looked at him indulgently, like she wanted to kneel down and stroke his head, as she would an upset child. Instead, she said, "So, tell me about your dream.  What do vampires dream about?"  She smiled at him playfully. 

Spike studied her as he pulled on his jeans. Her thick, black wiry hair was loose and wild, jutting out in all directions.  She wore a large white muslin shirt that hung low to her knees and khaki pants that ended midway up her shins.  She gave off a sweet, muskyscent**, **like sex and mangoesmixed with the sweet stickiness of tropical fruit.  Her brown skin was moist and shiny, as if she had just oiled it.  

"Vampires dream of death and blood and sex.  That's pretty much it, pet.  Sometimes a few oedipal issues sneak in, but mainly it's just gore and guts.  He looked around the room.  "Have you seen my shirt, love?"

"This it?"  She held up his faded and tattered black t-shirt.  He reached for it, and she reluctantly released it to his cool hand.  She continued to gaze at him.

Spike pulled on his shirt, aware of Sabrine watching him.  Her hunger was like a soft growl deep in the belly of the space between them.  He could taste her desire floating on the tip of his tongue, a warm open petal, wet and sweet.  Quiet, hot energy had begun pulling him toward her.  _Aw, fuck_.  Spike quickly leaned over and picked up his belt, breaking the snaking, seductive attraction. He tucked in his shirt and put on the thin leather belt.  The aura of her want had thickened the air, and her quickening pulse was causing him an inconvenient and uncomfortable erection.  He ran a hand through his hair before looking her square in the eye.  He reached out and tenderly placed the palm of his hand on her head, his thumb resting on her temple.  He said softly, "Look, love, I'm here to get business done and be on my way.  Not saying I'm not tempted, but s'not a good idea."

Her eyes had closed, her dark features softening under his touch.  Then Sabrine sighed, opened her eyes and gently removed his hand from where it had become sensually entangled in her thick tresses. She looked up at him and smiled.  "No, it's not the best of ideas, but I've had worse."  She laughed then, a deep loose laughter that poured through him like honey.  "Much worse."  

Pulling on his boots, Spike looked up at her and grinned.  "I can imagine.  We'll have to swap stories sometime."  He liked her.  Liked being near her, made him feel easy inside, warm-like.   He stood up looking out the windows and past the open door.  "Where's Ralph?  I need to see her."  

As he headed for the door her strong hand wrapped around his arm, stopping him.  "She's not here.  She's in London."  

"London? You've got to be kidding.  Ralph's in London?"  He was beyond shocked.

"Ralph comes and goes rather unpredictably.  With unimaginable speed, I might add."

He had just never thought of Ralph as anywhere but here in the wilds of Africa, weaving her magic and watching the world through her crystal ball.  He had dismissed her educated way of talking as something she had cultivated as part of her new identity when Raaeolaphogusia became Ralph,sort of like histaking on an East Side broguewhen William became Spike.He just could not picture her walking the streets of London.  What was she doing there? Ralph didn't seem like the tourist type. Besides, things were happening. Not the time for a little holiday.  In the back of his mind her story of falling in love with an Englishman tugged at him.  Could her trip have something to do with that? She had practically spelled out that he had been a Watcher.  Might she be paying a visit to the Watcher's Council?  Surely not.****

Just then, awareness of the silence surrounding them hit Spikelike a slap across the face.  There was hardly a sound. "Why is it so quiet, pet?  Where is everyone?"  

"They're up at her house.  We'll go up and join them in awhile.  But first, you must be hungry."  She walked over to a bamboo box she had apparently brought with her, and pulled out a thermos.  Handing it to him, she said, "How's O positive?"

"As long as it's human and nothing fancy, like, you know," he made a face of disgust, "Slayer blood."  He took the thermos and tentatively brought it to his lips.  Seemed regular enough.  He began to drink as he walked out of the hut and looked around the village compound.  He took another swallow. "Okay, Sabrine, let's have it.  What happened down there on the trail, and what's my part in all this?"  He looked at her challenginglyas he drank the rest of the blood, "Or do you know?"

Sabrine leaned against the hut and looked into the night sky, as if she were studying the constellations. Spike was mesmerized by the perfect curve of her wide hip resting against the clay wall, taking momentary pleasure in imagining the soft power. . . Sabrine broke his reverie.

 "I know what I know.  And I sometimes understand things differently than Ralph."  She sighed and motioned to a bench that was off from the main part of the village.  "We can talk some, and I'll answer your questions best I can.  But we don't have a lot of time.  They'll be waiting for us."

"Is that right?"  He was feeling impatient.  The dream of Buffy floated around him like an apparition, whispering at him, urging him to find out what he needed to know and get out of there.  And what's he doing?  Watching Sabrine with a hunger he hadn't felt for a woman since…Buffy.  He was not only feeling impatient, he was feeling guilty, for Cor's sake.  Like he shouldn't think about or want another woman.   

Sabrine had been watching him, her eyes filled with a sudden dark knowledge.  "She was in your dream."  

Spike stopped his obsessiving long enough to be surprised.  "How'd you know that?"

Sabrine closed her eyes and concentrated, becoming very still.  "Oh. It wasn't a dream.  Her spirit was here.  She came for you."  Sabrine opened her eyes and smiled, looking at Spike. "My, my." Then she tilted her head as if listening for something.  She nodded slowly, almost imperceptibly, and closed her eyes again. "But she couldn't hold you."  She furrowed her brow as if trying to see more.  "She's powerful, more than we thought.  More than she knows."  Her face became relaxed, the strain had lifted. "She pulled your soul and spirit back with her.  There is a bond between you, a primal connection.  Like gravity, it keeps pulling the two of you toward each other.  But there is…" her eyes flew open before she could finish and she doubled up in pain, falling from the wooden bench to the bare ground.  She lay there in a ball, holding herself, moaning.

Spike was next to her immediately, his large hand on her forehead, his arm around her shoulders.  "What is it, love?"

Sabrine's body straightened and became stiff as she let out a long low howl.  Then she collapsed, breathing hard against the dirt.  Spike picked her up and carried her to the hut, laying her down on the blankets.  She looked up at him, amazement and terror on her face, her lips trying to move.  

"Shh, shhh, pet.  Don't talk."  Spike got a ladle of water from the bucket in the corner and brought it to her, pressing it to her lips.  The pounding of her pulse vibrated through him.  Her terror and shock throbbed into in him, her red-hot pain pulling at him like the call of blood.  The nerve endings of his vamp face were tingling with an urgency to surface.  Instinctually he leaned in closer, the hunger in him directing the first moves toward the kill. He froze as a shot of clarity hit him. _Right.  A vampire trying to nurse and comfort a Slayer_. _Made him feel like he had a slate loose._  

"A soul doesn't end the hunger of fear,does it?"  She had been watching him, aware of his arousal, and ready to counter any attack, like any Slayer would be.

"No.  Apparently not." He said unapologetically.  He held the ladle up to her lips again and she drank thirstily."I'm a vampire.  The soul's an afterthought."

She sat up, holding her head in her hands, trusting him again.  "Not such a little thing, a soul.  Not so insignificant.  You have no idea."  She looked up at him, clear-eyed.  A fierce, defiant clarity brightened her features.  

"Sabrine, my dream, how did you…"

"Comes with the Slayer package of preternatural abilities.  You know, super strength, shape-shifting tendencies, psychic sensitivities, uncontrollable urges to hump vampires.  The usual."  She shrugged, then carefully stood up, clearly still in some pain.  

He put an arm around her to steady her.  "Not the usual Slayer skills I've known."  

"Yeah, but you haven't known what a Slayer can be."  

Spike intuitively knew this was true, except for maybe the Chinese Slayer.  She had seemed just what he expected a Slayer to be, but then he hadn't known that she had special tricks up her sleeve.  He'd never experienced or heard of a Slayer like Sabrine.  He wanted to know more.  But this wasn't the time.

"Something didn't want you poking around in my dreams, pet.  Knocked you on your arse."  He looked at her questioningly. "You said we were safe here."

"We are."  Sabrine sighed and added with a slight tone of embarrassment, "As long as the psychic boundaries are maintained."

"And?"  

She took the ladle from him and drank again.  Then she walked to the corner of the room and dropped the ladle into the pail.  It hit the metal corner, causing a sharp clang. "In order to see into your _dream_, I had to bend the energetic barrier between realities.  That created an opening.  Sorry.  You know what they say--curiosity killed the..."

She looked at him with a face stripped bare, exposed, all her truths there for his taking.  Her voice was cold and challenging.  "You want to know your part in all this?"

Spike waited, his crystalline blue eyes meeting the obsidian blackness of hers.

"A soul?  You're telling us that Spike has a soul?"  There was not only utter disbelief, but also no small measure of disgust in Giles' voice. "Next you'll be telling us that he has expressed remorse and begs forgiveness for his endless acts of brutality."

Ralph had a patient and somewhat forced smile on her face.  "You'll have to ask him about that.  I find it irrelevant. The point is that a vampire has never…_never_…sought out his soul.  Think about it, Watcher.  Think about what it means."

Willow was spellbound, more so by the witch across from her than by the information---which she understood was shocking from Ralph's tone**, **rather than her words.  What did _it_ mean that Spike had a soul?  So did Angel.  A situation not without its advantages and its pitfalls, but not exactly the end of the world.   Willow was more interested in Ralph.  She could feel the old woman's restrained power in every molecule in the room.  She had never felt such a depth of magical energy.  Even when the darkest of forces had rushed through her fingertips, destroying all she touched, she had not felt this.  If she dropped her awareness a little deeper and squinted her eyes, she could see the golden cords of primal power extending from the witch's form into the earth.  This strange, wrinkled crone of a witch was connected.  And not just to the higher powers.  

"…you don't really think.."  Giles paused, a frown forming on his forehead as he struggled to grasp what it was that the witch was implying.  

Blythe, who had been silently watching the interaction between the witch and the watcher, finally spoke. "Who is Spike, again?"

Both Giles and Ralph gave her the briefest of dismissive looks before continuing with their exchange.  Willow didn't even hear Blythe, but she noted Rose's eyes grow large as saucers with understanding. 

Ralph continued**, **her voice heavy with anger. "Where were you, Watcher, as your Slayer was fighting for her lifeandfinding it in the arms of a vampire?"  Ralph sighed heavily**, **as if to shake off the ire that was replacing her impatience.  "Oh well.  Not really your fault.  You might as well ask, where was I? But who would have thought?  Anyway, it's happened.  The impossible.  And nothing will remain as it was."

Giles squirmed in his chair.  He took off his glasses and rested his forehead against the palm of his hand.  "Let me see if I have this right.  By the very act of transforming his nature, Spike has created an imbalance…no, that's not quite right, is it?  It's more like the slayer/vampire bond has been altered and . . .the complexities of the situation boggle the mind."

"Yes.  The exchange of power between Slayers and vampires has been affected. Think about it. If evil, pure evil, can conceive of and manifest goodness, than what becomes the purpose of Slayers?   What will the makeup of future Slayers be?   Will the Slayer line even continue? And," Ralph paused, as ifhesitating to touch upon the real subject of her concern, "what consequence might occur within the Slayer lineage when a vampire, say Spike, for instance, can love so deeply as to sacrifice himself?  What consequential event might occur of equal power?

Giles rolled his eyes and mumbled, "Self-sacrifice, indeed. Mark my words, it was nothing of the sort.  Everything Spike does is about himself."  

"Giles, be quiet."  A shiver had run through Willow at the witch's last words**.** She looked directly at Ralph.  "This isn't just about a potential shift in primal energies.  Something has happened as a result of Spike's soul-getting.  What evil _did_ his good deed shake loose?"

Giles and Ralph stared at her, caught off guard by Willow's sharp interruption.  

Willow sat straight in her chair, looking unflinchingly into Ralph's eyes.  Ralph seemed amused by Willow's air of challenge, and looked back at her softly, with something akin to kindness in her old eyes.  Giles cleared his throat, and spoke, "Willow's right. What does Spike have to do with the evilness that is emerging?  That's why you're here, isn't it?"

Willow was quiet deep inside, listening for what intuitive information would come her way about Ralph.  The others had been silent, leaving the discussion in the hands of Giles.  Rose had her notebook out and was busy scribbling like her life depended on it.  Ralph slowly turned from Willow, breaking their connection, and answered Giles.

"Spike has broken the biological and spiritual bonds that define a vampire, giving him access to powers he can't even imagine.  Which, by the way, he has no inkling of.  If that weren't scary enough, your Slayer is coming into her second level of change.  She is unaware of what that involves and is not prepared for what is happening to her.  We can only be grateful for the short respite their separation provides.  The two of them together, unconsciously combining and using their energies, would at the very least stir up a nasty mess of cosmic chaos.  We'd be lucky if resulted in no more than the a major earthquake in California."  Ralph stood up, swinging her green wool poncho around her, scattering tiny blue sparks of energy as she moved.  Walking over to the window, she added.   "If these two don't come to understand and direct their powers and soon, then Garanthe will do it for them."

Before anyone could ask who Garanthe was, Ralph turned away from the window, her coal black eyes sparking as she zeroed in on Willow.  "And you, child.  Where did you come from?  Do you ever wonder how you and Buffy Summers ended up in the same place at the same time?  Do you think you have not known the lure of magic or the partnership of a Slayer before?"  

She walked over to Willow and stood behind her.  Placing her hand on the young witch'sshoulder, Ralph stood preternaturallystill.  Closing her eyes, she started to sing a low chant in Irish.  The room began to shift and change, time unraveling before them.  A young woman took form in front of the hearth, her amber-red hair whipping wildly in all directions.  The sound of waves crashing against rocks was all that could be heard.  Behind her was an endless body of water the color of tourmaline. Craggy gray cliffs covered with wild plum-colored moss surrounded her.  As she stood before them, she slowly began to age, until a withered crone was alone on the beach, leaning on a gnarled staff.  It had been carved from a root of some kindand was covered with engraved symbols blackened by age.  

The old woman raised her hand and pointed a crooked finger at Willow.  "I have brought it for you.  The root." She took a step closer to Willow.  Peeking out from layers of wrinkles, her eyes sparkled with tears.  "Sister, we have traveled with Slayers through time and dimensions, you and I, weaving our spells of dark and light."  She continued to stare into Willow. 

 "Theila," Willow whispered.  

The ancient one lowered her head in recognition and reverence.  "Gwendolyn," she answered back.  When she raised her head, her eyes were pools of black.  "Beware Garanthe.  She is watching you, waiting for her moment."  The old woman took the rod in her ancient hands and lightly held it high in front of her for a moment.  Then, with a wild screech of ancient incantations, she twirled the staff into the air where it remained suspended above them, spinning, wrapped in iridescent web-like shadows. 

An icy oceanic wind blowing in her hair and the powers of the earth swirling through her mind, Willow found herself being sucked down, down into the woman standing before them. Willow knew this body, this mind.  Theila.  Her sister.  They had ruled the covens in Ireland together in the 1700's and fought beside the Slayer. Then, as her sister said the name, Gwendolyn, Willow had found herself elsewhere.   

_The most beautiful woman Willow had ever seen was looking intentlyinto her eyes, her face so close Willow could smell the lavender in her hair.  The Irish Slayer's eyes were a translucent emerald green, cat-like and sharp.  Willow smiled at her and reached to pull her into her arms.  Garanthe leaned forward to kiss her.  At that moment, a red bleeding pain shot through Willow's left breast as a steel point found her heart and slipped through.  The warm touch of Garanthe's soft kiss upon her lips was the last sensation she felt. "May you find peace as you sleep in the arms of Gaia, my sweet Gwen," were the last words she heard before her soul and spirit drifted from her body. _

"Awake!"  It was Ralph's voice, quiet and sharp, bringing Willow back to the present. Ralph removed her hand from Willow's shoulder, and the witch on the beach disappeared**.  **But the room remained filled with the woman's ancient strength, and the fierce power of the earth she had emerged from.

Giles came to Willow as soon as he was free from the vision spell.  He knelt beside her, rubbing her hand, a look of deep concern on his face.  "Willow, are you alright?"  Not waiting for an answer, he stood and turned to Ralph, enraged. "What are you doing?"

Ralph ignored Giles. She looked into Willow's eyes, which were clear, and as still and deep as a winter lake.  Ralph nodded once at her, then was silent for a second before asking,  "Will you take it?"

Tears gathered in Willow's eyes as she sat perfectly still, staring ahead.  Then she looked into Ralph's eyes and slowly nodded.  She got up and went to stand below the staff floating near the ceiling.  She watched it for a long time.  It kept rotating high above them in a perfect circle.  Giles made a protective move towards her, but Willow held out her hand indicating that he should stay where he was. Then she began to sing softly, with an Irish lilt in her voice.  The rod started to glow in an effervescent sea green, very faint at first.  Willow held up her hand and the staff immediately began to shine and move, turning into a pearly green snake.  "Ey! To me, mine!"  Everyone jumped and stood back, except Ralph, who remained close by.  The snake dropped silently into Willow's open right hand, and wound itself into a tight coil.  Willow held it tenderly and whispered words only Ralph could hear.  The snake gradually unwound itself until at last it became a plain staff again, carved out of an unknown root, ash brown with a tint of green.

Giles looked over at Ralph, unable to speak.

"You asked what I needed from you.  I need all of your powers.  Your Slayer's, the vampire's, and the witch's.  Spike's claiming of his soul has opened a portal within the slayer lineage.  Garanthe has risen and will not easily be defeated."

"Run that past me again, Pet."

Spike was pacing back and forth across the length of the hut.  It was clear to Sabrine that if it were possible for vampires to sweat, he'd be swimming in it by now.  She yearned to reach out and touch him.  She, a Slayer known across Africa for her skills in killing and taming vampires, stood here using all her willpower not to offer a vampire solace.  She sighed, resigning herself to the first of the inevitable changes to come.

"It goes like this.  There is a biological and spiritual web that connects Slayers and vampires.  It is spun from the raw powers of the universe.  Like a spider web, it is deceptively strong and amazingly sensitive.  Picture the web as extending around the earth's surface, and at each hell mouth a spider resides.  A Slayer.  The spider is attuned to every movement and vibration that disturbs the web.  One day, a certain master fly gets tired of playing by the rules of the web.  It begins to have tender feelings for the spider.  It even begins to dream of becoming a spider."

"Bloody hell woman, enough!  Being likened to a master fly is a bit too much."  Spike threw up his hands and turned to her, talking between clenched teeth.  "Explain it, plain and simple and to the point."

"You changed the rules of the game by changing what you are.  Nothing is as it was, including the web and the spider."

"The Slayer's different cause I got a soul?  How?"

"Don't forget there's more than one Slayer." She was getting a little irritated at how he seemed to continue to ignore that fact.   "I'm not unaffected, you know."  Sabrine couldn't stand the confinement of the hut any longer.  "Come on.  Let's head toward Ralph's place."  She grabbed a light rose-colored shawl from off a hook on the wall and she walked out the door.  

Spike followed, lighting a cigarette.  Catching up with her, he exhaled a thin line of smoke and said, "Okay.  Let's start with you then.  How's my getting a soul making you different?  

Sabrine was caught off guard at the quick turn of attention to her.  She felt confused and exposed.  For starters, the most immediate and noticeable change had been her feelings toward Spike.  She had not experienced deep feelings for a vampire before.  She hadn't thought of it as even a possibility.  Sure, she'd tamed and had sex with more than a few, as was expected of her. But the feelings she had for her domesticated vampires weren't like this.  She respected them for what they were—powerful and primitive animals.  A domesticated vampire was a beautiful and extraordinarily useful possession.  As their master, she took responsibility for those that she tamed and kept.  There were even two of her vamps that she was especially fond of and tended to pick more often then the others for the rituals and hunts.  It was not in her biology or belief system to think of a vampire as an equal.  Certainly, she had never felt anything emotional or beyond the built-in slayer/vampire sexual attraction toward one.  She would have questioned her sanity if she had.  

The ancient sexual rituals she had participated in were meant to allow her powers to awaken and evolve.  As powerful as those experiences had been, they had never led her to desire a vampire.  She hungered for the opening of power, but not for the vampire.  But, Spike.  She _wanted_ him.  More than that, she wanted to know him, to touch him tenderly, to share her power with him.  She shook her head.  _Crazy. A Slayer willing to share her power_. Feeling flustered, she looked at Spike.  He had a smirk on his face and his eyes told her he knew.  She took on the stance of royalty**.  **Tilting her head regally, she stalked off, throwing over her shoulder,  "I think I'll answer that another time."

"Fine then.  Now, tell me about the Slayer."

Sabrine felt a twinge of resentment, or jealousy, or both.  She wasn't sure.  She'd think about what she was feeling later.  Right now she considered what changes _his_ Slayer might be going through.

"Chances are she's experiencing more of her darkness consciously.  It's possible that she's gaining awareness of the connection that exists between slayers and vampires.  She is probably becoming clearer about what makes up her connection with you.  These are just guesses.  You see, part of a Slayer's makeup is a built-in blind spot.  Because of you getting a soul, her protective barrier has probably weakened, allowing her to know more of her darker nature.  Beyond that, I really don't know."  Sabrine stopped walking and took Spike's cigarette from his mouth, taking a deep drag.  She handed it back to him as she exhaled, saying, "Since you asked."  She thought it best to leave out that his Slayer was also going through a natural growth cycle that was pure hell.  Least it had been for her.  All those crazy visions and psychic changes.  She shuddered.

"That don't sound so bad.  She could use a little more insight.  A taste of her own nastiness would do her a world of good.  The Slayer thinks her darker side is a temporary fluke of nature.  Sheacts like she not only has to save the world, but has to demonstrate the importance good attitude while she's at it."  Spike stopped and looked at Sabrine.  Speaking louder than he needed to and pointing to himself in an aggravated fashion, he said, "And one more thing, she couldn't face up to the fact she wanted to shag this evil disgusting vampire everytime she saw him."

Sabrine laughed.  How little he understood what it is to be a Slayer. When Ralph first told her of the California Slayer's relationship with a vampire, she was shocked.  Then, as she had thought about it, it was obvious that the Slayer had been acting instinctually in order to engage and awaken her slayer energy.  Although lately, she had to admit, she was not so clear that had been a correct assumption.  

She said, "The changes that are happening might be a good thing.  An evolution of spirit for both vamps and Slayers.  Or not.  Time will tell.  For sure, Slayers will not be the same.  Slayer culture can't continue as it has if it accepts the truth of what has occurred." 

Spike looked a little nervous.  "You know, pet, it's my experience that most cultures have ways of making sure that things don't change—unless the change serves the existing power structure."  He took a drag off his cigarette, and said, "The way I see it, Ralph's the boss around here and she's been none too pleased with me lately."

"Ralph is not your biggest concern right now, believe me.  Could be it will come to your life depending on her powers and knowledge.  She's had plenty of chance to dust you, or worse. You could have found yourself sitting happily on her shoulder like Dracula, picking off fleas."

"Hah. Right.  What's that supposed to mean?"

"Just what it sounds like.  Literally.  Her and Drac go way back.  Ralph actually had great fondness for Dracula—still does.  I think it's possible they were lovers at one time.  They had an understanding between them.  But, he just couldn't resist.  He had to try and seduce one of her Slayers."  Sabrine looked up at him and smiled.  "Yours, I believe.  He's been at Ralph's side since, her favorite of all her pets.  You don't want to mess with Ralph."

Spike was speechless.  His lips were twitching, indicating he was trying to say something.  Then he broke out into a huge grin and began laughing, until he was howling.  "Guess that's one debt I won't have to look over my shoulder about anymore."  Sabrine watched him with a smile on her face, her hands on her hips. He suddenly stopped laughing and said, "Ralph did _that_?  Bloody hell."  Sabrine could see that he was struggling to grasp the latest piece of information she had shared.  Well, time to get to the real scary stuff.

"There's something else."  Ralph's cave-hut was in sight up the trail, marked by myriad points of light.  She turned to Spike.  "The force you felt trying to control you? Her name is Garanthe.  She was released when your soul was returned to you.  She was a Slayer in Ireland in the 1700's, who sold her power to an ancient sorcerer for, you know, the usual: immortality.  She sought to gain control over the Slayer line and was barely stopped.  Her lover's sister, Theila, a ruling sorceress, was able to immobilize Garanthe's power and seal her within a containment spell."  

Spike froze beside her, his face gone corpse-blank. "What?  One moment we're talking about slight shifts in the slayer/vampire dynamic, and the next you're adding, as though in passing, that there's an evil Slayer out to get me?  What is it about me?  Do I have a brand on me that says 'Slayer Property' or something?"

Sabrine's eyes widened.  "Well, as a matter of fact, yes."

"You're not talking about the "called" thing, are you?  There's something else?"

Sabrine nodded and reached out to touch the place where the crescent scar burned on his chest.  "You were called and domesticated.  This," she pressed on the scar, "tells all demons that you are ours.  That way, you will not be harmed, at least by other vampires or demons**.  **The real question at the moment is which Slayer will you service?  Garanthe is making a powerful play for you."

Spike was suddenly shaking with rage.  He went into game face and moved toward Sabrine.  She prepared to defend herself.  "If any Slayer has a claim to me, it's Buffy.  And, she don't want me and, even if she did, **no one** owns me."  He grabbed Sabrine by her hair and twisted her neck back.  She saw his eyes narrow a little in pain, and she knew the scar must be sending searing pain down his chest and arms for trying to harm her.  But his grip remained steady."So Ralph trades the chip in for a little brand, and just like that," he snapped his fingers in her face, "Slayers alone can say who and what I kill."  

Tears ran down Sabrine's face.  She could stop this, but she waitedto see if he would stop himself first.  "Spike.  Let me go.  There's more important things for you to know."

Spike had one hand in her hair and placed the other on the side of her head, moving into a familiar maneuver.  As he went to twist her head to break her neck, he released her and fell to the ground, writhingin agony.

Sabrine was sobbing and she hated herself for it.  She wanted to run to him.  For the first time in her life, she felt ashamed of being a Slayer.  

After a few moments, Spike slowly got up, the pain apparently easing. He was out of game face now, blue eyes staring at her with a stunned expression.  "I tried to kill you."  He sounded both puzzled and defeated.  "And, I wasn't able to."  The look of bafflement changed to horror.  "Oh, my God.  I would've killed you."

"I'm not easy to kill."  She stepped toward him slowly,as she would approach a wounded animal.  "I'm sorry, Spike.  Really."  Still crying,she said,  "You asked me how your having a soul was changing me."  She looked up and into his eyes.  "I feel shame."

He stared at her, his face like stone.

Sabrine stepped closer.  "I promise you, I will release you from the Slayer hold as soon as I can."

Spike put his hand to his chest, fingering the small scar. "Branded.  Ralph branded me. It's the only thing that kept me from killing you."  He looked down and put his fists against his temple, letting out a low growl.  Suddenly he stopped.  He looked at her and said calmly, "I'm still a monster, even with a soul. Ralph knew.  She was right to mark me."  Spike said softly, "Stop your crying, Sabrine."

"I'm not crying.  I never cry."

"Right."  He moved toward her and slowly took her into his arms.  He buried his face in her hair.  Sabrine put her arms around him and slowly rocked against him, until their pain at having hurt each other softened.  Spike nuzzled into the thickness of her hair.  He muttered, "This is some mess."

Sabrine mumbled against his chest, "It's always that way.  There's nothing I can do with it."

Spike laughed and stroked her hair.  "Not your hair, love.  The mess I've created.  Could've spent a week drinking my brains out like I usually do when my heart's broken.  But, no.  I got to go get a soul.  Seemed simple enough.  Now I've got three, count them, three slayers after me."   He looked at her and added playfully, "For one reason or another."

"Four."

"I counted you.  I know you've got your net out for me.  Can't say I mind," Spike said, a little cockily.

"Aren't you sure of yourself?"  Sabrine pulled away from him and smiled.  "Ralph.  You didn't count her."

"Ralph?  A Slayer?"  Spike became quiet.  Then he said, almost as if to himself, "The familiar buzz I felt around her, but couldn't place.  Slayer energy.  I didn't catch it cause it was too impossible of a thing to imagine. Ralph, a Slayer.  I'll be buggered."****

"There's so much you don't know.  Ralph is a Slayer and always will be. Spike, I'll tell you anything you ask.  Later.  But right now, you've got to understand about Granathe."

Sabrine began walking and pulled Spike after her.  

"What does she want with me?  Isn't freeing her so she can go on with her evil plans enough?"  Spike lit a cigarette and continued walking close to Sabrine. "How did my soul-getting break the containment spell anyway?"

"Ralph's theory is that a vampire reclaiming his soul was so radically unexpected that only something as equally radical and unexpected within the slayer lineage, such as Garanthe's betrayal of her nature, could manifest as an equalizer.  But, frankly, I don't think she has it all worked out.  My theory is…"  

"What does she want with me?"

Sabrine stopped a moment.  Spike stood next to her, waiting.  Off in the distance she heard the soft beat of drums.  He pulled another fag out of his pocket and lit it.  The village was now far behind them.  They had been following a path where the ground had been pounded hard as rock by thousands of bare feet.  She looked down at his beaten up leather boots.  A few inches away were her feet, naked and strong, a string of opal beads around one ankle.  Her heart pumped in a calm, steady rhythm.  She moved closer to him, deep in thought, seeking his presence for grounding.  She looked up at him.  She almost gasped.  Written on Spike's face as clear as the tattoo on her right hip was his desire for her.  She hadn't realized he had felt the attraction also.  Just as he was about to move his fingers to touch her, she began hurriedly walking, her feet not as confident as they touched the hard earth as before.  

A foot ahead of him, she said, "She wants to use your powers.  Ralph thinks that Garanthe doesn't know how you released her.  She suspects that Garanthe probably thinks it was through the great powers you have as a dark sorcerer and master vampire.  I don't think…"

"What powers do I have?"

"That remains to be seen.  There is no doubt that by breaking out of your nature as a vampire that you have accessed higher powers.  Just what they are and to what extent, we don't know.  You haven't exhibited anything extraordinary that I've noticed.  Other than the ability to make me cry."

"And that was so hard."  Spike touched her hand slightly as they walked.  "Sabrine, from what I understand, when a vampire and slayer are able to align their powers consciously with intent, there can be great power."

"Of course.  That's exactly what she has in mind.  The question is, how much and what kind of power would you bring to such an alignment?  She doesn't know that.  Neither do we." 

"How does Buffy fit into this?"

"She will be needed to help defeat Garanthe.  But not yet.  She is not ready.  Neither of you are."

________________________________________________

They walked in silence the last few stretches before reaching Ralph's place, all the time Spike's thoughts were reeling.  He couldn't decide what was the more disturbing—the branding, Garanthe, or. . .the poor bloke---Dracula as a parrot.  In with all of those very upsetting facts, were the feelings he had for Sabrine.  Course he wanted to shag her.  Slayer, thing and all.  He always wanted to shag 'em.  Ralph, being the exception.  

Once there, they found that there were several hundred people, what looked like the entire village, sitting in silence among numerous, tall, burning torches.  The crowd extended from the large level area in front of the oak door, to the edge of brush that marked the beginning of the sloping trail leading back to civilization.  As he and Sabrine approached the hut, she motioned him to be quiet and took his hand, leading him towards the door.  From inside he could hear a quiet chanting of female voices.  As they approached the old wooden door, it suddenly opened.  The inside of the hut was lit with countless candles.  In front of Spike and Sabrine stood Ralph, her silhouette lit from behind, making her fuzzy hair look like a shaggy halo.

"You're just in time."  Ralph opened the door in a gesture of invitation.  In the center of the room, surrounded by a small circle of chanting black women, sat Giles, cross-legged, with his eyes closed.  He was wearing khaki shorts with a white cotton shirt.  There were red and black streaks of thick paint across his face and a white dot painted between his eyes.  He was beating softly on a small black drum.  Dracula, sat on his shoulder, appearing very solemn.  Spike had to look away, he couldn't look Drac in the eyes.   

Off to Spike's right, just inside the doorway, he heard a whisper, "Pssst."   He gingerly leaned inside and looked around the corner.  

"Well, I'll be buggered," he said under his breath. Here in the middle of nowhere, a sodding sink-hole of a place that he couldn't find his way out of, stood Willow, smiling at him as if she had just flown in on her broom.

Ralph gave him a firm, but light shove, pushing him all the way inside.  In her deep, raspy voice, she said, "Come in, Spike.  We've been waiting for you."

Sabrine followed, shutting the door behind her, mumbling, "Damn."  

_"Where am I, love?"_

_She took his hand and pulled him to her. "Here, with me."  She kept one arm around his waist as she reached down with the other picking up his weathered black leather duster and wrappingit around them.  Within the warm darkness of the heavy coat she held him close, laying her head against his chest. "You're safe now," she said, gently, relieved._

_ "Buffy, love.  She's not letting me go, pet. She's not done with me."  He placed his fingers under her chin and tipped her face. "Listen, love, you need to…." _

_She looked questioningly into his eyes, her right hand resting above his heart, his skin hot to her touch.  At that moment the air became cold and still in the training room .  Time froze.  Spike's face became focused, determined, and he tried to speak, but his words were trapped within layers of icy silence.  All Buffy could make out was a name, "_Ralph"_, before raw anguish passed across his face, twisting his features as he was pulled out of her grasp, dissolving beneath her fingertips.  Buffy tried to scream, to move, but she couldn't. She felt as if she were encased in a block of burning ice. The leather coat dropped from her shoulders and burst into flames._


End file.
